Tag: Diversions

Diversions

Sound the cannon! Ring those bells! Sunday brings Abrams, the orchestra — and the ‘1812’ Overture to Waterfront Park

Music Director Teddy Abrams will lead the full Louisville Orchestra at Waterfront Park Sunday in the city’s annual July 4th celebration. All the cool fun starts at 5 p.m., with fireworks sponsored by the Louisville Bats. More details here.

Here’s the orchestra last year performing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, written in 1880 and now a staple for Fourth of July celebrations:

How did 1812 become the orchestral community’s answer to ballet’s Nutcracker? Credit Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops’ televised performance in 1974, replete with cannons, an expanded bell choir and fireworks, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Travel

Das ist schön! Louisville to Berlin for a $32,000 gay tango festival weekend

An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.

Tango has always been an art form friendly to same-sex couples — hardly surprising, when you consider one possible origin of the traditional Argentine dance is in Buenos Aires brothels, where men danced awaiting their turns for sexual assignations.

Now, with June’s gay pride month kicking off a busy summer of events for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks, The New York Times suggests the International Queer Tango Festival, July 28-31.

Let’s dance!

When: July 28-31. Airline: American. Route: Louisville to Washington to Berlin; total travel time: 16 hours and 30 minutes. How much: $7,720 per business-class ticket. Reservations.

For accommodations, the Waldorf Astoria Berlin ist schön, especially the King Presidential Suite — a large, luxurious apartment on the 31st floor. It sleeps four adults in two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms; a living room with a piano, fireplace; panoramic views from two balconies; a kitchen; separate office and service access. Here’s the view from a bedroom . . .

Corner bedroom
A corner room with Berlin at your feet.

. . . and the living room. Continue reading “Das ist schön! Louisville to Berlin for a $32,000 gay tango festival weekend” →

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

In auction frenzy, producer Legendary wins Lawrence’s ‘Bad Blood’ project with $3.5 million bid

Jennifer LawrenceBoulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

Four starsLegendary Pictures emerged victorious last night, landing the pitch package “Bad Blood,” with Lawrence starring as Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of controversial Silicon Valley blood-test company Theranos, according to Deadline.

Legendary will pay around $3.5 million for the script to be written by director Adam McKay, who just shared a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “The Big Short.” McKay will direct as well. Universal will distribute through its deal with Legendary, according to Deadline.

The trade site had reported earlier that the project featured all the requisites for the big packages studios are responding to right now, including a hot-button subject matter and Oscar winner Lawrence, 25, who’s found herself in the Academy Awards mix on prestige projects, most recently another film about an entrepreneur ‘Joy.’”

The mania around the latest movie cements Lawrence’s status as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars — and highest paid, too: a reported $20 million per film.

Hunger Games Mockingjay 2
The last of the series.

The “Hunger Games” series star pulled in $52 million between June 2014 and June 2015 alone, ranking her No. 34 of 95 on Forbes’ magazine’s latest list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities. No. 1: professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, at $300 million.

“Bad Blood” is Lawrence’s fourth project in the works. She’s now filming an untitled Darren Aronofsky project; “Passengers” is in post-production with a Dec. 21 release date, and “It’s What I Do” is in pre-production. There’s also been speculation she might star opposite Sandra Bullock in an all-female reboot of “Ocean’s Eleven.”

Diversions

At the Speed Cinema next weekend: ‘Our Last Tango’

The life and love story of Argentina’s most famous tango dancers María Nieves Rego, 80, and Juan Carlos Copes, 83, is revealed in this documentary/performance hybrid, according to the Speed’s event description. While telling their life stories to a group of young tango dancers and choreographers from Buenos Aires, María and Juan’s early lives are interpreted by the dancers.

2015. Directed by German Kral. Germany/Argentina, DCP, in Spanish with English subtitles, 85 minutes.

Tickets: $7 for members; $9 for non-members. Please click on a showtime below to buy them:

Live tango after the movie

Following the screenings, members of the Louisville Argentine Tango Society will share their love of the dance with a milonga, an Argentine Tango social dance, in which audience members can watch or join in dancing in the Speed Cinema lobby.

About the cinema

Speed Art Museum logoThe 142-seat theater is part of the newly renovated museum’s expansion. It’s equipped with state-of-the-art technology, including 16-mm, 35-mm and DCI-compliant 4K digital projection systems.

Diversions

Frazier Museum holding major Julius Friedman exhibit

lballetThe Julius Friedman: Fifty Year Retrospective opening Friday will feature some of the Louisville artist’s most iconic posters, including “Toe on Egg” (left), his famous Louisville Ballet poster of a dancer’s shoe balanced on an egg. In all, the exhibit will include more than 200 works.

Friedman’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and in other institutions across North America, Asia and Europe.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 9. More about the artist.

The Frazier is at 829 W. Main St. on Museum Row at the corner of Ninth and Main streets. It’s open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Adult tickets are $12. More ticket information.

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

Bidding hits fever pitch for $20M Lawrence’s ‘Bad Blood’ biopic about disgraced startup techie Holmes

Boulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

Five starsBidding on one of Lawrence’s newest projects — about disgraced Silicon Valley medical lab entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes — went nuts last night as nine companies offered $3 million to $4 million for director Adam McKay‘s screenplay, according to Deadline. The film, so far called “Bad Blood,” has a budget of $40 million to $50 million.

The trade site says the movie has “all the requisites for the big packages studios are responding to right now: hot-button subject matter, McKay coming off his Oscar for “Big Short” and Oscar winner Lawrence, 25, who usually finds herself in the Academy Awards mix on prestige projects, most recently ‘Joy.'”

Lawrence and Holmes
Lawrence (left) and Holmes.

Holmes, 32, launched Theranos in 2003, with claims it could test blood with only a pinprick vs. the traditional method of drawing blood by injection. That pumped up the company’s valuation to $9 billion as recently as two years ago, according to Deadline. The company has since come under investigation over claims of inaccurate testing. And Holmes’ own worth — at one point valued at $4.5 billion for her 50% stake — has fallen to a fraction of that.

Lawrence’s $52 million, and counting

She’s one of Hollywood’s box-office queens, Continue reading “Bidding hits fever pitch for $20M Lawrence’s ‘Bad Blood’ biopic about disgraced startup techie Holmes” →