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Marrakech: The Style | Mustapha Blaoui’s Showroom
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(by floridapfe)
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Lemurs, Madagascar
Photo: Stephen AlvarezDecken’s sifakas appear right at home in their karst home in western Madagascar. These lemurs live...
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![theatlantic:
Why a Chinese Company Wants to Own Your Local Movie Theater
There’s good chance that your local movie theater will soon be owned by a large, Chinese conglomerate. This weekend, Dalian Wanda Group announced that it would pay $2.6 billion to purchase AMC Entertainment, America’s second largest cinema chain. It would be the most expensive foreign takeover yet by a private Chinese company, a summer blockbuster for the mergers and acquisitions world.
For those prone to anti-China hysteria, this all might sound vaguely menacing (First they came for our factories, then they came for our Kevin James vehicles…). To others, it might simply sound a bit backwards. After all, China’s domestic box office earnings are on the upswing, growing faster than Hollywood’s catalog of comic book sequels. In the United States, theater revenues have essentially been stagnant for a decade as attendance has steadily dropped. From a strictly financial point of view, there isn’t much reason for a Chinese company to start snapping up American multiplexes.
But Dalian Wanda isn’t buying itself higher profits, at least in the short run. Rather, it’s buying an education. China plans to massively expand its own film industry in the coming years. But even more importantly, it would like to expand its cultural influence by becoming as good at producing and exporting entertainment as it is computers and phones. Much as the country’s manufacturers evolved by co-opting technology and techniques from abroad, its movie business is apparently looking to leap forward with some aid from America.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4fss7VwmS1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Why a Chinese Company Wants to Own Your Local Movie Theater
There’s good chance that your local movie theater will soon be owned by a large, Chinese conglomerate. This weekend, Dalian Wanda Group announced that it would pay $2.6 billion to purchase AMC Entertainment, America’s second largest cinema chain. It would be the most expensive foreign takeover yet by a private Chinese company, a summer blockbuster for the mergers and acquisitions world.
For those prone to anti-China hysteria, this all might sound vaguely menacing (First they came for our factories, then they came for our Kevin James vehicles…). To others, it might simply sound a bit backwards. After all, China’s domestic box office earnings are on the upswing, growing faster than Hollywood’s catalog of comic book sequels. In the United States, theater revenues have essentially been stagnant for a decade as attendance has steadily dropped. From a strictly financial point of view, there isn’t much reason for a Chinese company to start snapping up American multiplexes.
But Dalian Wanda isn’t buying itself higher profits, at least in the short run. Rather, it’s buying an education. China plans to massively expand its own film industry in the coming years. But even more importantly, it would like to expand its cultural influence by becoming as good at producing and exporting entertainment as it is computers and phones. Much as the country’s manufacturers evolved by co-opting technology and techniques from abroad, its movie business is apparently looking to leap forward with some aid from America.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
For those planning to attend a screening of This American Life - Live 2012: Ira just put out this message:
Hey everyone who’s bought tickets to our May 10th live show: if you’re an iPhone or Android user, we have a special app we’ve made, for you to use at a key moment in the show with the band OK Go. It’s free. And we think it’s going to be really fun. Download links:
iPhone
Android
If you have friends attending the show, please tell them about the app. The more people who have it, the more exciting this part of the show will be.
Important: Don’t wait till the night of the show to download the app. Some theaters don’t have great cell reception so you won’t be able to do it there.
People without smartphones who are coming to the show, don’t worry, we have you covered too. You have a key role to play in the moment of iPhone/Android magic that we and OK Go have planned. Just show up wearing shoes and you’ll be fine.
The global fusion band Rupa and the April Fishes is on tour, traveling and powering its shows on bicycles.
In this video, The World reporter Lonny Shavelson captured the atmosphere and sounds as the band was out on the road in Northern California.
This American Life is coming to a theater near you!
On Thursday, May 10th, 2012, Ira Glass and friends will perform an episode of “This American Life” on stage at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in NYC, and send it live via satellite to more than 500 movie theaters across the country.
The show will feature stories by Ira Glass, writers David Sedaris and David Rakoff, comic Tig Notaro and “Snap Judgment” host Glynn Washington, and live music by OK Go. Also included in the show: a new short film by Mike Birbiglia, dance by Monica Bill Barnes & Company, original animation, projected illustration and more. Plus special surprise guests.
Happy Friday — here’s a Hindi rock video promoting the new “Avengers” movie.
Hollywood is looking to maximize revenues in India, a major market for movies. And the way to do that in the land of Bollywood is through music. More.
is this real life?
a mildly mentally disabled girl walks down the hall of her high school, and her inner thoughts are supposedly narrated by a female, British voice. According to the narration, she can easily have any dude east of the Mississippi: her objection to the Irish exchange student was that he grinned too much and it made him look insane; her objection to American of indeterminable race was that his mohawk looked like a squirrel glued to his head; her objection of the Asian guy was “No-Chang-Do. I’m no rice queen.” She rejected each candidate based on behavior (excessive grinning), style (bad mohawk), and RACE? MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WATCH THIS SHOW? AND THAT KIND OF A REACTION TO A HUMAN BEING IS OKAY? “NO, THANKS. YOU’RE, LIKE, ASIAN.” whatishappening.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac on his role in skewering news media and his current project, hosting the fourth season of “AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange” on public television.
“I like documentaries, I have to do community service for some gambling debts, um … and so why not do this,” Cenac said about his public television stint.
Chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley, center, consults with Ailinne Espinoza, 13, left, and Alexis Hernandez, 13, at New York’s Mott Hall Middle School. (AP)
There are only about a thousand grand masters of chess in the world, and Ashley is one of them.
Ashley wasn’t even good enough to make his high school chess team. But he studied hard and became a master when he was 20, then, 14 years later– a grand master– a ranking just short of world champion.
He’s 45 now and Maurice Ashley has made chess his life. He travels the world bringing chess to kids who might not otherwise be aware of it — on Here and Now, he talked about the world of chess, and how technology is impacting the game.
