The Tony Awards

The official announcement of winners followed at the historic 65th annual Tony Awards presented on Sunday, June 12, 2011 aired on CBS. This year, big changes were in store for the Tonys as the awards show moved from its traditional home at the cavernous Radio City Music Hall to a new venue at Broadway's Beacon Theatre. Like most glittering awards shows by today's standards the Tonys began under humble beginnings when the first Tony Awards ceremony took place in 1947 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Broadway stars, directors and producers would later gather at various other venues over the years (including the Plaza and Astor Hotels) for the annual Tony Awards when in 1967 the show moved to a Broadway theatre - the Shubert - which also marked the first time the awards were broadcast on national television. After three decades on Broadway, the Tonys finally settled at Radio City Music Hall and remained there every year but one between 1997 and 2010.

Producer John Davis Talks about the Challenges of Adapting Ray Bradbury’s THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES

John Davis is no stranger to the sci-fi genre having producer all of the Predator films as well as I, Robot and Paycheck. His biggest challenge when it comes to sci-fi lies ahead with a planned adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Bradbury said of his celebrated work that it was “a book of stories pretending to be a novel.” Those individual stories relate to the human colonization of Mars and the conflict between the colonists and the natives. Recently Matt Goldberg spoke with Davis about the film. Davis says he’s met with Bradbury (who is now 94) and gotten his input on the adaptation. Davis adds that he envisions the movie (which is set up at Paramount) as a summer blockbuster but “one with a weighty intellectual background.”
Source: Collider

Art Brussels, Thu 28 April - Sun 1 May 2011

Art Brussels, 29 Contemporary Art Fair offers a choice of 170 galleries, nominated in accordance with a rigorous quality-based selection procedure.
The international selection committee places particular emphasis on the work of young creatives in contemporary art. The fair has the most international profile of any other fair in Europe, with 80% of its participants coming from over 25 countries.
Art Brussels yearly attracts 30 000 art enthusiasts, including a considerable number of art collectors, critics, journalists, curators and other decision makers; one in five visitors comes from outside Belgium. A VIP Privilege programme welcomes over 300 collectors from throughout the world, treating them to free overnight accommodation and a stimulating off-programme.

Philippe Vergne makes public plea for Ai Weiwei

In spirited plea for more attention and protest to be directed at the case of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, detained since April 3rd as he boarded a flight, Dia Art Foundation Director Philippe Vergne asked all in international arts communities to sign a petition for his release and to participate in sit-ins outside Chinese Embassies worldwide. He said detention and oppression of artists now can be connected to historical cases of dissent—he mentioned Jean Genet (from his home country), Sakineh Mohammadi, and David Wojnarowicz alongside Ai. The enforcers who silence artists were referred to as barbarians afraid of themselves. The self-loathers, he wrote in the statement published online at ARTINFO, "can build a Great Wall to protect themselves, a Maginot line to control the invasion, but these edifices only blind them from their true enemy: themselves, and their own desire for power and control, their belief in their own self-importance." Vergne had a colorful way to describe the artist: "Ai Weiwei is the fou du roi, the sole person who is authorized to poke at the king because the king knows that his position is only as powerful as his acceptance of the critic. The minute the buffoon is silenced, the king is naked, and the king knows that it is not pretty."
As Ai's detention goes on, with new allegations of economic crimes' and supposed pornography charges that smell of a smear campaign against one of China's few vocal critics internally, Vergne made the point that the artist gains power and the king wears no clothes.

Complete 64th Cannes Film Festival Official Selection is Announced

The 64th Cannes Film Festival official selection was just announced this morning. A total of 49 films this year are featured in four categories: Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition and Special Screenings (including those Midnight Screenings). The festival kicks off on May 11th next month and lasts for 11 days until May 22nd. I will be attending for my third straight year in a row and I cannot wait to be in France! It was previously announced that Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris would be opening the fest, but there's plenty of other treats like The Tree of Life, Drive and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Source: Official Website

Keanu Reeves Gives Plot Details On '47 Ronin'

Keanu Reeves is clearly stoked about his upcoming samurai film "47 Ronin." And he has every right to be. The project, which is directed by Carl Erik Rinsch, has been years and years in the making.
When MTV News caught up with Reeves, the actor excitedly shared details about the flick, which screenwriter Chris Morgan has previously described to us as a "'Gladiator'-esque, '300'-like big action movie with samurai and ninja."

"I call it a story of revenge and impossible love," Reeves said. The 46-year-old actor went on to explain that in the film, "The samurai become outcast and decide to enact revenge on the person who is responsible for the death of their lord." In the movie, which is not only 3-D, but as Reeves describes it "kind of a Western," the star plays the character Kai, "an outsider, a kind of half-breed with a mysterious past, who's in love with the princess and she's in love with me, but we can't be together."
(MTV Movies Blog)

Stephen King's book The Stand will become a massive movie

Stephen King's DARK TOWER series isn't the author's only expansive work currently getting translated into an ambitious movie project. Not content to watch Ron Howard and Universal have their fun with the Gunslinger, Warner Bros. and CBS Films are getting into king-size King business with a feature adaptation of his colossal post-apocalyptic novel THE STAND.

According to Heat Vision, "the studios and producers will sit down with writers and directors in the coming weeks in an attempt to find the right take on the material. One thing to be determined is whether to attempt the adaptation in one or multiple movies. King will be involved in some capacity." King's sprawling tale of good versus evil follows the various survivors of lethal biological weapon known as Captain Trips. The diverse characters are slowly drawn together to take sides in a final showdown in Vegas. The book was previously adapted in a 1994 ABC TV miniseries, starring Gary Sinise. Marvel has been presenting the story in comic form over the past few years.
(Source: Heat Vision)

The New York art space kicks off its annual exhibition of upcoming creative talent

MoMA’s annual exhibition of emerging art photographers has showcased the talents of such dignities as Philip Lorca diCorcia, Thomas Demand, Rineke Dijkstra and Sara VanDerBeek. The 2010 exhibition brings together photographers Roe Ethridge, Elad Lassry, Alex Prager, and Amanda Ross-Ho, four artists whose work branches across art, fashion, photography and film. MoMA has long recognized the relevance of fashion photography. The museum has a large collection of Irving Penn’s photographs and only a few months ago presented a series of portraits and fashion photographs by Richard Avedon.

Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Literature Prize

STOCKHOLM – Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday as the academy honored one of the Spanish-speaking world's most acclaimed authors and an outspoken political activist who once ran for president in his tumultuous homeland. Vargas Llosa, 74, has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including "Conversation in the Cathedral" and "The Green House." In 1995, he won the Cervantes Prize, the most distinguished literary honor in Spanish. Vargas Llosa is the first South American winner of the prestigious 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) Nobel Prize in literature since Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez won in 1982.
"I am very surprised, I did not expect this," Vargas Llosa told Spanish National Radio, adding he thought it was a joke when he received the call. "It had been years since my name was even mentioned," he added.