Islamic art helps boost Louvre's No. 1 attendance status

The Louvre's large new wing devoted to Islamic art helped the famed French gallery solidify its No. 1 spot atop an annual list of the world's best-attended museums.

The Art Newspaper has released its annual list of the past year's most popular museums and exhibits around the globe.

Familiar names scored in the top 10, including Paris's Louvre, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum in London.

One interesting factor that emerged for researchers was that the top two venues of 2012 had unveiled much-anticipated gallery spaces devoted to Islamic art during the year. The Louvre's long-gestating addition is the largest of its kind in Europe, with approximately 3,000 Islamic art pieces and artifacts on display, some dating back to the seventh century.

The chart-topping Louvre had 9.7 million visitors, an increase of nearly a million over the previous year. Meanwhile, the second place Met recorded 6.1 million, about 100,000 more than a year earlier, after revamping its galleries dedicated to Islamic Art.

"What we're seeing is, I suppose, ultimately a kind of [audience reaction] to museums responding — in the best way that they can — to everyone's interest and concern about our relationship with Islamic countries," Javier Pes, the Art Newspaper's London-based deputy editor, told CBC News on Friday.

"They're all trying to show Islam's great contributions to civilization."

Though museums like the Louvre and the Met "always had wonderful collections" of Islamic art, there is great significance to presenting them "in their new, much grander setting," he noted.

Especially in France's iconic Louvre where "occupying a whole courtyard puts Islamic art on a completely different status than it ever did in the past," Pes acknowledged.

"I did ask them what they thought [their increased attendance] was due to and they did say that they thought the Islamic galleries had an impact."

Two Canadian museums made it onto the count of the 100 most-visited art museums in the world: the Royal Ontario Museum (58th) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (81st), both in Toronto.

Blockbuster shows

As part of the yearly examination, the Art Newspaper also tracked the exhibitions that drew the highest number of visitors worldwide.

Topping the list was the kickoff of the Dutch Old Masters exhibit Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis in Tokyo, headlined by Paul Vermeer's famed portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring. The show attracted more than 10,000 visitors a day and 758,266 people overall to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

The figure was more than double the overall attendance for the second most-attended exhibit: the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil's free show The Amazon: Cycles of Modernity, which drew 7,928 visitors daily and 374,846 overall to Rio de Janeiro.

Canadian exhibits that made the cut in the Art Newspaper's extensive list included:

• Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario - Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso (2,959 visitors daily/308,582 overall) and Chagall and the Russian Avant Garde (2,256 visitors daily/152,637 overall).
• Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada - Van Gogh: Up Close (1,911 visitors daily/230,146 overall).
• Quebec City's Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec - Pellan: an outstanding donation (1,544 visitors daily/4,632 overall); In Wonderland: Brightening Shadows (973 visitors daily/87,580 overall); Up Close and Personal with the Caillebotte Brothers (782 visitors daily/62,565 overall); Fashion and Appearance in Quebec, 1880-1945 (650 visitors daily/50,043 overall).
• Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum - Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World (1,429 visitors daily;202,946 overall).
• Montreal's Musée d'art contemporarin - Québec Triennial 2011: the Work Ahead of Us (921 visitors daily/75,000 overall) and Zoo (902 visitors daily/69,818 overall).

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Harry Potter actor Richard Griffiths dies at 65

Richard Griffiths, 65, died Thursday from complications following heart surgery, his agent, Simon Beresford, said. (James Boardman/Reuters)

Richard Griffiths was one of the great British stage actors of his generation, a heavy man with a light touch, whether in Shakespeare or Neil Simon. But for millions of movie fans, he will always be grumpy Uncle Vernon, the least magical of characters in the fantastical Harry Potter movies.

Griffiths died Thursday at University Hospital in Coventry, central England from complications following heart surgery, his agent, Simon Beresford, said. He was 65.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe paid tribute to the actor Friday, saying that "any room he walked into was made twice as funny and twice as clever just by his presence."

"I am proud to say I knew him," Radcliffe said.

Griffiths won a Tony Award for "The History Boys" and appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. But he will be most widely remembered as a pair of contrasting uncles — Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon Dursley and Uncle Monty in cult film "Withnail and I."

Griffiths was among a huge roster of British acting talent to appear in the Harry Potter series of films released between 2001 and 2011.

'A license to be horrible to kids'

His role, as the grudging, magic-fearing guardian of orphaned wizard Harry, was small but pivotal. Griffiths once said he liked playing Uncle Vernon "because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids."

But Radcliffe recalled Griffiths' kindness to the young star.

"Richard was by my side during two of the most important moments of my career," said Radcliffe, who in 2007 starred with Griffiths in a London and Broadway production of Equus.

"In August 2000, before official production had even begun on 'Potter,' we filmed a shot outside the Dursleys', which was my first ever shot as Harry. I was nervous and he made me feel at ease.

"Seven years later, we embarked on Equus together. It was my first time doing a play but, terrified as I was, his encouragement, tutelage and humour made it a joy."

Uncle Monty

Earlier, Griffiths was the louche, lecherous Uncle Monty to Richard E. Grant's character Withnail in Withnail and I, a low-budget British comedy about two out-of-work actors that has become a cult classic. Years after its 1987 release, Griffiths said people would regularly shout Monty's most famous lines at him in the street.

"My beloved 'Uncle Monty' Richard Griffiths died last night," Grant tweeted Friday. "Chin-Chin my dear friend."

A huge stage presence, Griffiths created roles including the charismatic teacher Hector at the emotional heart of Alan Bennett's school drama The History Boys. He won an Olivier Award for the part in London and a Tony for the Broadway run, and repeated his performance in the 2006 film adaptation.

National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner, who directed The History Boys, called Griffiths' performance in that play "a masterpiece of wit, delicacy, mischief and desolation, often simultaneously."

Griffiths also played poet W.H. Auden in Bennett's The Habit of Art, a hugely persuasive performance despite the lack of physical resemblance between the two men.

Deaf-mute parents

Griffiths was born in northeast England's Thormaby-on-Tees in 1947 to parents who were deaf and mute — an experience he and his directors felt contributed to his exceptional ability to listen and to communicate physically.

"The first language he learned was sign. And therefore his ability to listen to people with his eyes as well as his ears is incredible," Thea Sharrock, who directed Equus, told The Associated Press in 2008.

Griffiths left school at 15 but later studied drama and spent a decade with the Royal Shakespeare Company, making a specialty of comic parts such as the buffoonish knight Falstaff.

On television, he played a crime-solving chef in 1990s' British TV series Pie in the Sky, and he had parts in movies ranging from historical dramas Chariots of Fire and Gandhi to slapstick farce The Naked Gun 2 ½.

Known for his sense of humour, large store of rambling theatrical anecdotes and occasional bursts of temper, Griffiths was renowned for shaming audience members whose cellphones rang during plays by stopping the performance and ordering the offender to leave.

Griffiths' last major stage role was in a West End production of Neil Simon's comedy The Sunshine Boys last year opposite Danny DeVito. The pair had been due to reprise their roles in Los Angeles later this year.

Griffiths is survived by his wife, Heather Gibson.

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Robert Zildjian, Sabian Cymbals founder, dies at 89

According to the company, Robert Zildjian was the descendant of 10 generations of Armenian cymbal makers. (CBC)

The founder of Sabian Cymbals, the New Brunswick company that supplies cymbals for drummers around the world, has died.

Robert "RZ" Zildjian died on Thursday. He was 89.

"A tireless and dynamic force, he inspired each one of us in the Sabian family to work harder, to reach farther, to make a difference and he led us by example," wrote the company on its Facebook page.

"We draw comfort from the knowledge that his spirit will live on in the music made by artists the world over."

Sabian is one of the largest cymbal companies in the world. (CBC)

Zildjian founded Sabian Cymbals in Meductic in 1981 after a legal battle with his brother over inheritance of the Zildjian family business.

The two companies remain competitors and world leaders in the cymbal business.

Sabian cymbals are still made in the southern New Brunswick town where the Zildjian company once had its production line.

Keeping production in Canada was one factor in the split between the Zildjian brothers.

Zildjian named the new company after the two first letters of the names of his children Sally, Bill and Andy.

Fans of his cymbals include Phil Collins, Neil Peart of Rush and Keith Harris of the Black Eyed Peas.

Sabian's current president is Zildjian's son Andy.

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Grammy-winning producer Phil Ramone dies

Producer Phil Ramone, pictured with Anne Murray, won 15 Grammy awards including one for the soundtrack of the movie 'Flashdance.' (Aaron Harris/Canadian Press)

Phil Ramone, the Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer whose platinum touch included recordings with Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon, has died at 79.

Ramone's son, Matt Ramone, confirmed the death. The family did not immediately release details of the death, but Ramone said his father was "very loving and will be missed."

Few producers had a more spectacular and diverse career. Ramone won 14 Grammy Awards. He worked with Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, Elton John and Tony Bennett.

He produced three records that went on to win Grammys for album of the year — Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years, Joel's 52nd Street and Charles's Genius Loves Company. He was a pioneer of digital recording who produced what is regarded as the first major commercial release on compact disc, 52nd Street, which came out on CD in 1982.

He thrived producing music for television, film and the stage. He won an Emmy for a TV special about Duke Ellington, a Grammy for the soundtrack to the Broadway musical Promises, Promises and a Grammy for the soundtrack to Flashdance.

Ramone made an art out of the Duets concept, pairing Sinatra with Bono, Luther Vandross and other younger artists, Bennett with McCartney and Barbra Streisand, and Charles with Bonnie Raitt and Van Morrison. In Ramone's memoir, Making Records, he recalled persuading a hesitant Sinatra to re-record some of his signature songs.

"I reminded Frank that while Laurence Olivier had performed Shakespeare in his 20s, the readings he did when he was in his 60s gave them new meaning," Ramone wrote.

"I spoke with conviction. 'Don't my children — and your grandchildren — deserve to hear the way you're interpreting your classic songs now?"'

A native of South Africa, he seemed born to make music. He had learned violin by age 3 and was trained at The Julliard School in New York. Before age 20, he had opened his own recording studio.

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Islamic art helps boost Louvre's No. 1 attendance status

The Louvre's large new wing devoted to Islamic art helped the famed French gallery solidify its No. 1 spot atop an annual list of the world's best-attended museums.

The Art Newspaper has released its annual list of the past year's most popular museums and exhibits around the globe.

Familiar names scored in the top 10, including Paris's Louvre, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum in London.

One interesting factor that emerged for researchers was that the top two venues of 2012 had unveiled much-anticipated gallery spaces devoted to Islamic art during the year. The Louvre's long-gestating addition is the largest of its kind in Europe, with approximately 3,000 Islamic art pieces and artifacts on display, some dating back to the seventh century.

The chart-topping Louvre had 9.7 million visitors, an increase of nearly a million over the previous year. Meanwhile, the second place Met recorded 6.1 million, about 100,000 more than a year earlier, after revamping its galleries dedicated to Islamic Art.

"What we're seeing is, I suppose, ultimately a kind of [audience reaction] to museums responding — in the best way that they can — to everyone's interest and concern about our relationship with Islamic countries," Javier Pes, the Art Newspaper's London-based deputy editor, told CBC News on Friday.

"They're all trying to show Islam's great contributions to civilization."

Though museums like the Louvre and the Met "always had wonderful collections" of Islamic art, there is great significance to presenting them "in their new, much grander setting," he noted.

Especially in France's iconic Louvre where "occupying a whole courtyard puts Islamic art on a completely different status than it ever did in the past," Pes acknowledged.

"I did ask them what they thought [their increased attendance] was due to and they did say that they thought the Islamic galleries had an impact."

Two Canadian museums made it onto the count of the 100 most-visited art museums in the world: the Royal Ontario Museum (58th) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (81st), both in Toronto.

Blockbuster shows

As part of the yearly examination, the Art Newspaper also tracked the exhibitions that drew the highest number of visitors worldwide.

Topping the list was the kickoff of the Dutch Old Masters exhibit Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis in Tokyo, headlined by Paul Vermeer's famed portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring. The show attracted more than 10,000 visitors a day and 758,266 people overall to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

The figure was more than double the overall attendance for the second most-attended exhibit: the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil's free show The Amazon: Cycles of Modernity, which drew 7,928 visitors daily and 374,846 overall to Rio de Janeiro.

Canadian exhibits that made the cut in the Art Newspaper's extensive list included:

• Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario - Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso (2,959 visitors daily/308,582 overall) and Chagall and the Russian Avant Garde (2,256 visitors daily/152,637 overall).
• Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada - Van Gogh: Up Close (1,911 visitors daily/230,146 overall).
• Quebec City's Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec - Pellan: an outstanding donation (1,544 visitors daily/4,632 overall); In Wonderland: Brightening Shadows (973 visitors daily/87,580 overall); Up Close and Personal with the Caillebotte Brothers (782 visitors daily/62,565 overall); Fashion and Appearance in Quebec, 1880-1945 (650 visitors daily/50,043 overall).
• Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum - Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World (1,429 visitors daily;202,946 overall).
• Montreal's Musée d'art contemporarin - Québec Triennial 2011: the Work Ahead of Us (921 visitors daily/75,000 overall) and Zoo (902 visitors daily/69,818 overall).

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Harry Potter actor Richard Griffiths dies at 65

Richard Griffiths, 65, died Thursday from complications following heart surgery, his agent, Simon Beresford, said. (James Boardman/Reuters)

Richard Griffiths was one of the great British stage actors of his generation, a heavy man with a light touch, whether in Shakespeare or Neil Simon. But for millions of movie fans, he will always be grumpy Uncle Vernon, the least magical of characters in the fantastical Harry Potter movies.

Griffiths died Thursday at University Hospital in Coventry, central England from complications following heart surgery, his agent, Simon Beresford, said. He was 65.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe paid tribute to the actor Friday, saying that "any room he walked into was made twice as funny and twice as clever just by his presence."

"I am proud to say I knew him," Radcliffe said.

Griffiths won a Tony Award for "The History Boys" and appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. But he will be most widely remembered as a pair of contrasting uncles — Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon Dursley and Uncle Monty in cult film "Withnail and I."

Griffiths was among a huge roster of British acting talent to appear in the Harry Potter series of films released between 2001 and 2011.

'A license to be horrible to kids'

His role, as the grudging, magic-fearing guardian of orphaned wizard Harry, was small but pivotal. Griffiths once said he liked playing Uncle Vernon "because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids."

But Radcliffe recalled Griffiths' kindness to the young star.

"Richard was by my side during two of the most important moments of my career," said Radcliffe, who in 2007 starred with Griffiths in a London and Broadway production of Equus.

"In August 2000, before official production had even begun on 'Potter,' we filmed a shot outside the Dursleys', which was my first ever shot as Harry. I was nervous and he made me feel at ease.

"Seven years later, we embarked on Equus together. It was my first time doing a play but, terrified as I was, his encouragement, tutelage and humour made it a joy."

Uncle Monty

Earlier, Griffiths was the louche, lecherous Uncle Monty to Richard E. Grant's character Withnail in Withnail and I, a low-budget British comedy about two out-of-work actors that has become a cult classic. Years after its 1987 release, Griffiths said people would regularly shout Monty's most famous lines at him in the street.

"My beloved 'Uncle Monty' Richard Griffiths died last night," Grant tweeted Friday. "Chin-Chin my dear friend."

A huge stage presence, Griffiths created roles including the charismatic teacher Hector at the emotional heart of Alan Bennett's school drama The History Boys. He won an Olivier Award for the part in London and a Tony for the Broadway run, and repeated his performance in the 2006 film adaptation.

National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner, who directed The History Boys, called Griffiths' performance in that play "a masterpiece of wit, delicacy, mischief and desolation, often simultaneously."

Griffiths also played poet W.H. Auden in Bennett's The Habit of Art, a hugely persuasive performance despite the lack of physical resemblance between the two men.

Deaf-mute parents

Griffiths was born in northeast England's Thormaby-on-Tees in 1947 to parents who were deaf and mute — an experience he and his directors felt contributed to his exceptional ability to listen and to communicate physically.

"The first language he learned was sign. And therefore his ability to listen to people with his eyes as well as his ears is incredible," Thea Sharrock, who directed Equus, told The Associated Press in 2008.

Griffiths left school at 15 but later studied drama and spent a decade with the Royal Shakespeare Company, making a specialty of comic parts such as the buffoonish knight Falstaff.

On television, he played a crime-solving chef in 1990s' British TV series Pie in the Sky, and he had parts in movies ranging from historical dramas Chariots of Fire and Gandhi to slapstick farce The Naked Gun 2 ½.

Known for his sense of humour, large store of rambling theatrical anecdotes and occasional bursts of temper, Griffiths was renowned for shaming audience members whose cellphones rang during plays by stopping the performance and ordering the offender to leave.

Griffiths' last major stage role was in a West End production of Neil Simon's comedy The Sunshine Boys last year opposite Danny DeVito. The pair had been due to reprise their roles in Los Angeles later this year.

Griffiths is survived by his wife, Heather Gibson.

22.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Robert Zildjian, Sabian Cymbals founder, dies at 89

According to the company, Robert Zildjian was the descendant of 10 generations of Armenian cymbal makers. (CBC)

The founder of Sabian Cymbals, the New Brunswick company that supplies cymbals for drummers around the world, has died.

Robert "RZ" Zildjian died on Thursday. He was 89.

"A tireless and dynamic force, he inspired each one of us in the Sabian family to work harder, to reach farther, to make a difference and he led us by example," wrote the company on its Facebook page.

"We draw comfort from the knowledge that his spirit will live on in the music made by artists the world over."

Sabian is one of the largest cymbal companies in the world. (CBC)

Zildjian founded Sabian Cymbals in Meductic in 1981 after a legal battle with his brother over inheritance of the Zildjian family business.

The two companies remain competitors and world leaders in the cymbal business.

Sabian cymbals are still made in the southern New Brunswick town where the Zildjian company once had its production line.

Keeping production in Canada was one factor in the split between the Zildjian brothers.

Zildjian named the new company after the two first letters of the names of his children Sally, Bill and Andy.

Fans of his cymbals include Phil Collins, Neil Peart of Rush and Keith Harris of the Black Eyed Peas.

Sabian's current president is Zildjian's son Andy.

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Takao Tanabe, Gathie Falk win $30K Audain Prize for art

Two veteran West Coast artists — painter and sculptor Gathie Falk and landscape painter Takao Tanabe — have been named winners of the $30,000 Audain Prize.

The prize, sponsored by Vancouver art collector and philanthropist Michael Audain, is awarded annually to a B.C. artist for lifetime achievement. It is the 10th anniversary of the award, which has previously gone to artists such as Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, E.J. Hughes and Marian Penner Bancroft.

The winners were announced Friday night by the Vancouver Art Gallery, along with the winner of VIVA Award.

Abstract artist Elizabeth McIntosh, a teacher at Emily Carr University, is this year's winner of the VIVA, presented by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts to a B.C. artists who demonstrate exceptional creative ability and commitment.

Tanabe was born in Seal Cove, B.C. and interned with his family during the Second World War. After graduating from Winnipeg School of Art in 1949, he furthered his studies in New York and travelled in Europe on an Emily Carr scholarship. He moved to Vancouver Island in 1980.

Now 86, he continues to paint at the studio he built on his remote property on the B.C. coast.

Tak Tanabe continues to paint in his Vancouver Island studio. (Chick Rice)

"I'm slowing down and the paintings are getting darker I think — darker sky, darker sunsets, more dramatic," said the artist, who has been painting for 60 years.

He is fascinated by the seascapes and landscapes of the West Coast, but says his work is now focused on wilder weather.

Many of his earliest landscapes capture a moment of stillness against a broad horizon, including his series featuring Prairie scenes, done when he was head of the Art Department at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the 1970s.

Tanabe said he's not thinking of retiring — he's too busy, with three exhibitions last year and another coming up in April of next year.

Sculptures in ceramic and paper mache

Manitoba-born Falk worked as an elementary teacher in British Columbia while she studied fine art before becoming a full-time artist in 1965.

196 Apples by Gathrie Falk, 1969-70, ceramic and Plexiglass stand. (Teresa Healy/Vancouver Art Gallery)

Falk, a past recipient of the Governor General's Award for Visual Arts and the Order of Canada, is known for her ceramic sculptures such as Eight Red Shoes, part of the National Gallery of Canada collection and 196 Apples, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her sculptures of paper mache and everyday objects, sometimes in an unusual environment, are dreamlike and amusing.

Now 83, she still paints in the studio she built on her property in a blue-collar neighbourhood in East Vancouver.

"I'm doing something I've never done before and that is abstract art, large abstract paintings," she said, adding that she continues to work as a sculptor.

"I've always been a lover of American abstract art. It is to me the biggest thrill," she said. "I'm an expressionist and I've been drawn to that…all my work was expressionistic — that is painting in very bright colours — but that didn't go over at all in the 1960s."

She abandoned the abstract style in 1965, but now says she is preparing both abstract and realist paintings for her next show.

Falk, Tanabe and McIntosh will be honoured April 4 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

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FILM REVIEW: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

This week, Hasbro — the people responsible for the movie version of Battleship — offer filmgoers G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a sequel to the 2009 opus. Is it an action film or just a bunch of action figures? Perhaps it's a sign of cinema's coming apocalypse or the dawning of a new bromance between Magic Mike and The Rock.

So, what kind of film is this? Your mission briefing starts below.

• It's the kind of movie that opens in North Korea (Hollywood's new favourite evil empire), where Roadblock (played by man-mountain Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) cuts a hole into a chain-link fence by using high-tech thermal gloves to melt the metal — because bolt cutters are just so old-fashioned.

Channing Tatum, left, and Dwayne Johnson are fist-bumping bros in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. (Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures/Associated Press)

• It's the kind of movie where the soaring popularity of Channing Tatum required a series of re-shoots, which seem to mainly consist of fist-bumping bonding between Roadblock and Tatum's Duke

• It's the kind of movie where Roadblock quotes rapper Jay-Z in the team prayer before the Joes launch into battle, as the movie's soundtrack shreds like the wayward child of Skrillex and Good Charlotte.

• It's the kind of movie that makes one feel slightly sad for Jonathan Pryce, who appears as the villain Zartan, in disguise as the U.S. president (stay with me), but makes you yearn to see him in Brazil instead.

• It's the kind of movie where a Cobra explosives expert named Firefly uses ... fireflies. Oh, and speaks in a bourbon-soaked accent like Francis Underwood on House of Cards.

• It's the kind of movie in which Lady Jaye recounts fighting to convince her father that female soldiers deserve to be in combat situations alongside their male counterparts, while stripping down to her thong in front of colleague, Flint.

• It's the kind of movie where — amid gun battles, sword fights and the decimation of tanks, buildings and, in one spectacular case, the entire city of London — not a single drop of blood is shed (Hey, just like the cartoon!).

• It's the kind of movie where an evil president quips: "They call it waterboarding, but I never got bored."

• It's the kind of movie where you've already seen all the best Bruce Willis moments if you've seen the trailer.

• It's the kind of movie that feels like the cacophonous, fevered dream of a nine-year-old, pulled together through slap-chop editing in the style of a John Woo knock-off and featuring dialogue reminiscent of a lesser season of Entourage.

• It's the kind of movie directed by Jon M. Chu, best known for his Step Up dance films and Justin Bieber's Never Says Never. Next up for Chu: the He-Man reboot Masters of The Universe.

• It's the kind of movie where the 3D is pointless, the pace relentless and the box office impact inevitable.

Even bad movies deserve better than this.

RATING: 2 out of 5.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is the kind of film where you've already seen all the best Bruce Willis bits in the trailers. (Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures/Associated Press)

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True fame far from fleeting, research shows

Reality TV stars may come and go, but a new study suggests true fame is enduring.

The research finds that people who achieve real celebrity remain famous for years, making frequent appearances in newspapers over periods of decades.

The work bucks the widely held notion that fame is ephemeral, a belief held both by average individuals and by those who study the sociology of fame.

Eran Shor is an assistant professor of sociology at McGill University and is one of the authors of the study, which is published in the American Sociological Review.

'The large, large, large majority of people who get famous stay famous. For a long time...not 15 minutes, not 15 hours, not 15 days, not 15 months even'—McGill associate professor Eran Shore

He and his co-authors used large collections of newspaper archives that spanned decades to study the issue, looking at people in sports and politics and the field where fame is thought to be most fleeting, entertainment.

They found that even a dead celebrity like the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes continues to feature in news articles long after his death.

"The large, large, large majority of people who get famous stay famous. For a long time. How long, it depends on how famous they got. But years — not 15 minutes, not 15 hours, not 15 days, not 15 months even," Shor says.

"We're basically coming out and saying not only is fame not (fleeting), it's extremely sticky."

Research drew names at random

Shor undertook the work with two colleagues from Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., along with a software engineer from Google.

This portion of their ongoing work looks at figures in entertainment.

Jamie Foxx with NAACP image award he won Feb. 1. His name kept coming up in media clippings. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/Associated Press)

From a list of tens of millions of names that appeared in the entertainment sections of more than 2,000 newspapers between 2004 and 2009, a random sample of 100,000 names was drawn.

Some of those names would have belonged to non-celebrities — people who garnered one or two mentions. Others would be minor or moderate celebrities and still others real stars.

The names were then analyzed to see which appeared most often, with the top 10 from the sample selected for study. And then those names were tracked — going both forward and backwards in time — to see if people who were frequently written about one year had sustained fame.

Actors whose fame endures

The top 10 were actors Jamie Foxx, Bill Murray, Natalie Portman, Tommy Lee Jones, Naomi Watts, John Malkovich, Adrien Brody and Steve Buscemi. Rounding out the group were music producer (and convicted murderer) Phil Spector and the late inventor and billionaire Howard Hughes.

Shor explains that these people aren't the most famous of the famous — another random selection of 100,000 names might have drawn up Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Jennifer Aniston. But of 100,000 names randomly drawn for this study, these 10 were the most frequently written about.

Four are Oscar winners (Foxx, Portman, Jones and Brody) and all are well known. But arguably none are among the super-elite of celebs. And yet their fame endures, Shor notes.

"Here's a group of people that are fairly famous, but perhaps not the most famous of them all — and all of them stick. All of them stay around from year to year. We know who they are, the papers keep writing about them, they stay in some kind of a celebrity (mode). They didn't go away."

Further, Shor and his colleagues found that 96 per cent of the people whose names were mentioned over 100 times in a year also written about at least three years before and would likely be written about in the next three years as well.

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Islamic art helps boost Louvre's No. 1 attendance status

The Louvre's large new wing devoted to Islamic art helped the famed French gallery solidify its No. 1 spot atop an annual list of the world's best-attended museums.

The Art Newspaper has released its annual list of the past year's most popular museums and exhibits around the globe.

Familiar names scored in the top 10, including Paris's Louvre, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum in London.

One interesting factor that emerged for researchers was that the top two venues of 2012 had unveiled much-anticipated gallery spaces devoted to Islamic art during the year. The Louvre's long-gestating addition is the largest of its kind in Europe, with approximately 3,000 Islamic art pieces and artifacts on display, some dating back to the seventh century.

The chart-topping Louvre had 9.7 million visitors, an increase of nearly a million over the previous year. Meanwhile, the second place Met recorded 6.1 million, about 100,000 more than a year earlier, after revamping its galleries dedicated to Islamic Art.

"What we're seeing is, I suppose, ultimately a kind of [audience reaction] to museums responding — in the best way that they can — to everyone's interest and concern about our relationship with Islamic countries," Javier Pes, the Art Newspaper's London-based deputy editor, told CBC News on Friday.

"They're all trying to show Islam's great contributions to civilization."

Though museums like the Louvre and the Met "always had wonderful collections" of Islamic art, there is great significance to presenting them "in their new, much grander setting," he noted.

Especially in France's iconic Louvre where "occupying a whole courtyard puts Islamic art on a completely different status than it ever did in the past," Pes acknowledged.

"I did ask them what they thought [their increased attendance] was due to and they did say that they thought the Islamic galleries had an impact."

Two Canadian museums made it onto the count of the 100 most-visited art museums in the world: the Royal Ontario Museum (58th) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (81st), both in Toronto.

Blockbuster shows

As part of the yearly examination, the Art Newspaper also tracked the exhibitions that drew the highest number of visitors worldwide.

Topping the list was the kickoff of the Dutch Old Masters exhibit Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis in Tokyo, headlined by Paul Vermeer's famed portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring. The show attracted more than 10,000 visitors a day and 758,266 people overall to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

The figure was more than double the overall attendance for the second most-attended exhibit: the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil's free show The Amazon: Cycles of Modernity, which drew 7,928 visitors daily and 374,846 overall to Rio de Janeiro.

Canadian exhibits that made the cut in the Art Newspaper's extensive list included:

• Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario - Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso (2,959 visitors daily/308,582 overall) and Chagall and the Russian Avant Garde (2,256 visitors daily/152,637 overall).
• Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada - Van Gogh: Up Close (1,911 visitors daily/230,146 overall).
• Quebec City's Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec - Pellan: an outstanding donation (1,544 visitors daily/4,632 overall); In Wonderland: Brightening Shadows (973 visitors daily/87,580 overall); Up Close and Personal with the Caillebotte Brothers (782 visitors daily/62,565 overall); Fashion and Appearance in Quebec, 1880-1945 (650 visitors daily/50,043 overall).
• Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum - Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World (1,429 visitors daily;202,946 overall).
• Montreal's Musée d'art contemporarin - Québec Triennial 2011: the Work Ahead of Us (921 visitors daily/75,000 overall) and Zoo (902 visitors daily/69,818 overall).

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Indian actor Sanjay Dutt agrees to jail term

Indian film actor Sanjay Dutt will stop fighting his conviction on weapons charges and serve out his term in jail, he announced on Thursday.

Last week, India's Supreme Court rejected the hit actor's final appeal. He had been convicted of owning an assault rifle supplied by the same gangsters who carried out the Mumbai 1993 bombings.

There had been speculation that the high-profile actor would ask the Indian government for a pardon, a suggestion raised earlier this month by a retired Supreme Court judge. Given Dutt's profile in the Hindi film industry, many said they were willing to support efforts to seek a pardon.

However, in a tearful three-minute address to the media on Thursday, Dutt said it was time for him to face his jail term, which the Supreme Court has reduced to five years.

Not seeking a pardon

"There are many other people who deserve pardon. I just want to say with folded hands that when I'm not going for a pardon then there's no debate about it," he said.

"I love my country and I love the citizens of my country and I love India. I love India," he said, breaking down as his sister —Congress party MP Priya Dutt — consoled him.

Dutt said his family was "shattered" by his need to serve jail time. He then left for the set of a film in which he plays a police officer — one of several of his films under production. The actor, popular for his role as a do-good gangster in the Munnabhai movie series, has four films in the pipeline, including Peekay, Policegiri, Unglee and a remake of Zanjeer.

The actor has been on bail since 2007, when he appealed an original sentence of six years for the illegal possession of an AK-56 rifle and a pistol. He was cleared that same year of conspiracy charges in the case, which was linked to the Mumbai attacks that killed 257 people. Dutt claimed the weapons he possessed were to protect him and his family during a period of rioting in Mumbai.

The Supreme Court has ordered Dutt to return to custody within four weeks. He had already served 18 months in jail and is expected to serve another 3.5 years.

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Alberta Ballet shows off k.d. lang-inspired Balletlujah!

Alberta Ballet recently gave a sneak peek in Calgary of its new production Balletlujah! — a tribute to Canadian music legend k.d. lang.

The contemporary ballet features the singer's music and tells the story of a love affair between two women.

The gay singer is not only the inspiration but has been a key collaborator in the production.

The ballet, set to her music, is about her life growing up in a small prairie town. The final number is her beautiful rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which she sang at the Vancouver Olympic Games.

Jean Grand-Maître, the ballet's artistic director and choreographer, says Lang was hesitant to take on the project when he first approached her.

"But after we did the opening ceremonies at the Vancouver Olympics, where I was also director of choreography, and her magnificent performance at that time — which is one of the highlights of her career — we knew we had to work together, and we had to create a ballet in Alberta where she was born," he said.

The pop and country singer known for hits such as Constant Craving and Miss Chatelaine has won four Grammy Awards and eight Junos.

Lang, who grew up in Consort, Alta., is also known for her support for animal rights and Tibetan human rights.

The world premiere will be in Edmonton on May 3-4 and then in Calgary May 9-10.

The ballet continues Grand-Maître's series of tributes to the works of famous musicians, including Joni Mitchell, Sir Elton John and Sarah McLachlan.

Alberta Ballet gave a little preview Wednesday of its tribute to Canadian music legend k.d. lang. (CBC)

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Rolling Stones to play U.K.'s Glastonbury festival

The Rolling Stones will be taking the stage again this summer at one of Britain's leading music festivals.

The Stones' appearance at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival — set to take place from June 28 to June 30 — was revealed Wednesday in a line-up posted on the festival's website.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and The Stones recently held a series of concerts to celebrate their 50th year together and there have been rumours of more activity.

Before those shows, the Stones hadn't performed in concert together since 2007.

They confirmed their June 29 Glastonbury appearance in a post on their official website, with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger taking to Twitter to say he "can't wait" to play the festival.

Referring to the farmland in southwestern England where the festival his held, Jagger said: "I have my wellies and my yurt," a portable dwelling used by nomads.

Grammy winning group Mumford & Sons, Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer Elvis Costello and the Arctic Monkeys also are on the lineup for the sold-out festival.

Other acts include Portishead, Rufus Wainwright, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Lumineers and Alabama Shakes.

Glastonbury was not held last year due to the Olympics and to allow the farmland to recover.

This year, around 135,000 tickets sold out in less than two hours.

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FILM REVIEW: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

This week, Hasbro — the people responsible for the movie version of Battleship — offer filmgoers G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a sequel to the 2009 opus. Is it an action film or just a bunch of action figures? Perhaps it's a sign of cinema's coming apocalypse or the dawning of a new bromance between Magic Mike and The Rock.

So, what kind of film is this? Your mission briefing starts below.

• It's the kind of movie that opens in North Korea (Hollywood's new favourite evil empire), where Roadblock (played by man-mountain Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) cuts a hole into a chain-link fence by using high-tech thermal gloves to melt the metal — because bolt cutters are just so old-fashioned.

Channing Tatum, left, and Dwayne Johnson are fist-bumping bros in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. (Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures/Associated Press)

• It's the kind of movie where the soaring popularity of Channing Tatum required a series of re-shoots, which seem to mainly consist of fist-bumping bonding between Roadblock and Tatum's Duke

• It's the kind of movie where Roadblock quotes rapper Jay-Z in the team prayer before the Joes launch into battle, as the movie's soundtrack shreds like the wayward child of Skrillex and Good Charlotte.

• It's the kind of movie that makes one feel slightly sad for Jonathan Pryce, who appears as the villain Zartan, in disguise as the U.S. president (stay with me), but makes you yearn to see him in Brazil instead.

• It's the kind of movie where a Cobra explosives expert named Firefly uses ... fireflies. Oh, and speaks in a bourbon-soaked accent like Francis Underwood on House of Cards.

• It's the kind of movie in which Lady Jaye recounts fighting to convince her father that female soldiers deserve to be in combat situations alongside their male counterparts, while stripping down to her thong in front of colleague, Flint.

• It's the kind of movie where — amid gun battles, sword fights and the decimation of tanks, buildings and, in one spectacular case, the entire city of London — not a single drop of blood is shed (Hey, just like the cartoon!).

• It's the kind of movie where an evil president quips: "They call it waterboarding, but I never got bored."

• It's the kind of movie where you've already seen all the best Bruce Willis moments if you've seen the trailer.

• It's the kind of movie that feels like the cacophonous, fevered dream of a nine-year-old, pulled together through slap-chop editing in the style of a John Woo knock-off and featuring dialogue reminiscent of a lesser season of Entourage.

• It's the kind of movie directed by Jon M. Chu, best known for his Step Up dance films and Justin Bieber's Never Says Never. Next up for Chu: the He-Man reboot Masters of The Universe.

• It's the kind of movie where the 3D is pointless, the pace relentless and the box office impact inevitable.

Even bad movies deserve better than this.

RATING: 2 out of 5.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is the kind of film where you've already seen all the best Bruce Willis bits in the trailers. (Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures/Associated Press)

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Pakistan's Malala to publish memoir

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban, is writing a memoir.

Publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson says it will release "I am Malala" in Britain this fall. Little, Brown will publish it in the rest of the world.

Yousafzai began writing a blog for the BBC under a pseudonym about life in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan, in 2009. The Taliban were expanding their influence and sometimes banned girls from going to school.

A Taliban gunman shot Malala on Oct. 9 last year, while she was on her way home from school. The militant group said it targeted her because she promoted "Western thinking" and, through her blog, had been an outspoken critic of the Taliban's opposition to educating girls.

She spent several months in a British hospital undergoing skull reconstruction and cochlear implant surgeries, but was released last month and has returned to school in Britain.

Malala said in a statement Wednesday that she hoped telling her story would be "part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school."

"I hope the book will reach people around the world, so they realize how difficult it is for some children to get access to education," she said. "I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61 million children who can't get education."

Publishers did not reveal the price tag for the book deal, estimated by the Guardian newspaper at $3 million.

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Ryan Gosling hotline helps fans through actor's hiatus

[View the story "Ryan Gosling hotline helps fans cope with hunk's hiatus" on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community· Tue, Mar 26 2013 15:39:43

Uproxx

 Ryan Gosling fans were crushed last week to learn that theCanadian actor / most-giffable-man-alive would be "taking a break" from his careerfor a while.

"I've lost perspective on what I'm doing. I think it's goodfor me to take a break and reassess why I'm doing it and how I'm doing it," hetold the Associated Press, to which the internet collectively cried "Nooooo!"

Ryan Gosling announced he's taking a break from acting. In my despair, I decorated @drewrheik's desk. <a href="http://t.co/4TIlVAe7C8" class="">pic.twitter.com/4TIlVAe7C8</a>Calli

Clearly, the thought of a world withoutfresh Gosling flicks (which provide the online masses with viral Tumblr fodder and shirtless screencaps galore) was distressing for many...

So, Ryan Gosling is taking a break from acting for a while... <a href="http://t.co/OKpPKmYozL" class="">pic.twitter.com/OKpPKmYozL</a> Beth

OH MY GOD IM CRYING. WHY RYAN GOSLING WHY <a href="http://t.co/J5Nr6BcbjB" class="">pic.twitter.com/J5Nr6BcbjB</a>Abigail Holt

ryan gosling has decided to take a break from acting <a href="http://t.co/vK9LUAWIZy" class="">pic.twitter.com/vK9LUAWIZy</a>becky

That moment you find out Ryan Gosling is taking a break from acting.... <a href="http://t.co/5CwwoihiSX" class="">pic.twitter.com/5CwwoihiSX</a>Stacie

In an effort to help soften the blow (and perhaps generate some earned media buzz) a British video-on-demand service called Blinkbox has opened up "The Gosline" -- a 24-hour hotline that fans can call to hear clips of the actor's soothing voice in films like The Notebook, Gangster Squad and Drive.

For who better to help you through RyanGosling-induced heartbreak than Ryan Gosling?

Tumblr

Despite the fact that the British number is not toll-free, women and men from around the world are giving the Gosline a ring to hear the Canadian star say things like "We're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, everyday."

Victoria B.C.-based radio DJ Jon Williams gave the line a ring while he was live on the air this week:

The "Gosline" by WilliamsOfJonI'm super upset Ryan Gosling is taking some time off to recharge and become a director an stuff. Thank goodness someone saw a way to make...

And he's far from the only one to do so. The Gosline appears to be a hit.

I've just called the #gosline. I'm not even ashamed.Dani Millward

I've called the gosline like 10 times nowHair glice

Is it bad that I kind of desperately want to call #TheGosline on my lunch break?Kerry-Rose O'Donnell

Calling the Gosline, I'm a distressed fan. <a href="http://t.co/e7OnhPpUJh" class=""><a href="http://t.co/e7OnhPpUJh" class="">pic.twitter.com/e7OnhPpUJh</a></a>Jessica Rowlands

The Ryan Gosling Helpline Is The Best Invention Ever Invented, And That's A Fact: Sure electricity's great and... <a href="http://t.co/hhqcrBWsFk" class="">bit.ly/YxsKCV</a>Ugly Betty News

It worked #GoslineSam Radford

Just called the Gosline, doesn't quite have the same effect down the phone. <a href="http://t.co/6y29qrp1Ko" class=""><a href="http://t.co/6y29qrp1Ko" class="">pic.twitter.com/6y29qrp1Ko</a></a>Dionne Taylor

Many are praising BlinkBox for its originality and quick-thinking today. It's worth noting however, that they're not the first company to open up a fandom hotline.

Earlier this month, the "Twi-line" opened for British fans who are mourning the end of the popular Twilight film series.

Feed2

And in December 2011, the "Callin' Oates" hotline -- a U.S.-based Hall & Oats tribute "for when you just want to listen to some sweet H&O" -- went viral.

Unnecessaryumlaut

It continues to be popular more than two years on, with a new, fresh batch of songs recently added to its inventory.

Its one of those days for a brief @CallinOates break & "the sound of Philadelphia" #TSOP http://www.<a href="http://t.co/Jb1pc5F0iX" class="">CallinOates.com</a>Don Hinkle-Brown

So, so glad Callin' Oates is back. I felt Out of touch and Out of time without it. #moreiconiceightiesartistsonspeeddial.shawn

According to my iPhone, drunk Lou called Callin' Oates (Hall & Oates' emergency hotline) 18 times St. Paddys Day. 18 times. (719) 266-2837Louis Contaldi

Would you call a fan hotline? If so, for who?

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George Stroumboulopoulos to appear with Oprah again

When Oprah Winfrey returns to Canada this spring, CBC-TV host George Stroumboulopoulos will also be back at her side to chat with the talk show maven.

The host of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight first teamed up with Winfrey during her recent Western Canada visits in January. He conducted onstage interviews with her in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

On Wednesday, Stroumboulopoulos confirmed that he will again appear with Winfrey for the next few stops on her Canadian tour. He will conduct Q&A sessions with her in Ottawa (April 10), Montreal (April 11), Hamilton, Ont. (April 13) and Saskatoon (April 14).

"I love being in the company of someone so thoughtful, giving and focused on helping others find their place," Stroumboulopoulos said.

"Oprah is a lot of fun to be around and I am really looking forward to these upcoming events."

Winfrey became a household name with her syndicated, namesake talk show, which ran more than 25 years. She ended the landmark program in 2011 to focus her efforts on her specialty channel OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. In 2012, she brought her new network's touring Lifeclass series — in which she shares life lessons with fans — to Canada for the first time with a stop in Toronto.

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Police investigate battery, threats claims against Justin Bieber

Deputies were investigating claims made Tuesday by a neighbour that Justin Bieber attacked and threatened him during an argument in suburban Los Angeles, authorities said.

No one was arrested and few details were immediately available. A representative of Bieber did not immediately return a request for comment.

Online schedules indicate the Baby singer is in the midst of a European tour and performed a show in Poland on Monday night.

Authorities were called to the Calabasas scene just after 9 a.m., said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

"There have been allegations made against Mr. Bieber of battery and making threats," Whitmore said.

It's unclear who called authorities, and whether there might have been previous problems between the 19-year-old singer and neighbours, Whitmore said.

The investigation was first reported by TMZ.com.

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Jackson 5 songwriter Deke Richards dies

Motown songwriter-producer Deke Richards has died at a Bellingham, Wash., hospice at age 68.

Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center spokeswoman Amy Cloud confirms that Richards, whose real name was Dennis Lussier, died Sunday at the Whatcom Hospice House.

A statement from Universal Music said Richards had been battling esophageal cancer.

Universal Music says that as leader of the Motown songwriting, arranging and producing team known as The Corporation, Richards was involved in writing and producing many Jackson 5 hits. Those songs included the Jackson 5's first three No. 1 hits: I Want You Back, ABC and The Love You Save.

He also co-wrote Love Child for Diana Ross & The Supremes, as well Ross' solo I'm Still Waiting.

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Toronto's Becky Blake wins CBC Short Story prize

Becky Blake, a Toronto writer who is working on her first novel, has won the CBC Short Story Prize.

Her winning short story The Three Times Rule plunges readers into an encounter between a woman and her new lover with clear signs that the relationship is not going to work out.

Becky Blake of Toronto has won the CBC Short Story Prize. (Ayelet Tsabari)

"Really the story is about how difficult it is to make a connection. Part of the reason it's so difficult is that we all have these things going on inside of us that are very difficult to communicate to each other," Blake said.

Born in Kitchener, Ont., Blake is a graduate of the M.F.A. program at the University of Guelph. She said she first started the story in her 20s and has rewritten it numerous times over the last 12 years.

"I think I was dating a few guys in my 20s that were vaguely disappointing. You kind of want to make a connection with people and it just wasn't working and I think the character in the story is sort of an amalgam of those guys," she said, though she warns the story is not autobiographical.

A lover of short stories, she admires a stripped-down style that plunges the reader into the middle of a situation and leaves him or her to fill in the blanks.

Blake said she workshopped The Three Times Rule with friends in an effort to achieve that kind of spare style and still have the story be a coherent whole.

"I was trying to see what the bare minimum would be for telling a story with the minimum amount of words I could use. I always like to just jump into a middle of the scene," she said.

Blake has worked as a journalist, specializing in travel writing, an advice columnist, as an actor and a playwright for the one-woman show, Rocky Sucks Rocks. She also wrote some of the script for her sister's film about a dancing couple of the 1920s, Derby and Groma, that will premiere at the Hot Docs festival next month.

Her 2006 story Seasick was nominated for the Journey Prize, Make Believe will soon be published in Front&Centre and Snatch and Release is forthcoming in Room Magazine.

She wins $6,000 and a two-week residency at The Banff Centre's Leighton Artists' Colony, where she plans to try to finish the novel she's been working on for the past four years. It's about a Canadian woman, down on her luck in Barcelona, who becomes a thief.

Her story will be released in Air Canada's enRoute magazine and is published now on the Canada Writes website. She also gets a reading in Montreal and an interview on CBC Radio.

Four other finalists for the CBC short story prize win $1000 each. They are:

• Mathew Howard of Toronto for Old Hands.
• Roderick Moody-Corbett of Calgary for Parse.
• Eliza Robertson of Victoria for L'Étranger.
• Jay Tameling of Edmonton for Sweet Dynamite.

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McMaster music mining lab delves into download habits

Finally, someone is going to be able to answer life's most important questions: like why the Skyfall theme is a hit in Istanbul or why a Trinidadian hip-hop artist is so popular in Russia.

At least, those are some of the projects researchers hope come out of McMaster University's new Digital Music Lab, which was unveiled Monday afternoon.

The project is a joint venture between the university and mobile phone giant Nokia. Matthew Woolhouse, an assistant professor of music at McMaster, has been granted access to Nokia's music streaming and downloading records stretching back to 2007.

His research team plans to pore over the expansive dataset — about 20 million song downloads — and use the research to study how music affects people and shapes culture.

"Music is intimately connected to human beings," Woolhouse said. "It's part of our identity — therefore it says something about who we are, and where we're going."

'Music is not really a science. But it can be studied scientifically.'—Matthew Woolhouse, assistant professor of music at McMaster University

Researchers plan to study everything from the career path of an artist from birth to death across the globe, to refining the scope of musical genres — so no more arguing that your favourite band is Celtic metal and not black metal.

As one would expect, it's no small task, Woolhouse says.

"If you were to write it down on pieces of paper, [the data] would stretch over 2,000 kilometres — from here to Miami," he said.

"And it's growing — Nokia is feeding us new data all the time."

Researchers are just starting to scratch the surface of the data, but they do have some initial projects in mind.

One is music and migration: checking to see if there is an intrinsic connection with the music of a person's home country, and what happens to that connection when they move somewhere else.

"People are very connected to the music of their youth, and it's likely that it comes with them when they go abroad," Woolhouse said.

His team is also studying people's music habits at work — checking to see if there are patterns in what people choose to listen to in the morning rather than in the evening and how listening habits change during the work week.

A 'critical mass' of data

Before coming to McMaster, Woolhouse was a consultant for Nokia during the 2010 World Cup of Soccer in South Africa. He was tasked with looking for a pattern in music downloads in relation to the changing fortunes of soccer teams.

This time, his scope and resources are much greater. "When your data reaches a critical mass — a certain size — the individual differences that exist between people become one small part of a larger emerging pattern," he said. "So it's a question of spotting those patterns."

While the Nokia catalogue isn't the largest in the world, "it's still a fair number," Woolhouse said.

"Partners like Apple or Google don't usually release their data for academic use, so this is an interesting opportunity," he said.

And before cries of protest over privacy spring up, Woolhouse says not to worry — neither he nor any member of his team gets any data about a download other than the date, time and region in which it was downloaded.

"And I can't associate that date with any specific user," he said.

Some people say that music is too intrinsically linked to emotion to be simply summed up by datasets — and Woolhouse agrees with that sentiment, to a point.

"Music is not really a science," he said.

"But it can be studied scientifically."

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Nunavut design to challenge Venice Biennale-bound teams

Five Canadian design teams will take on the unique challenges of building in Nunavut in a new project heading to the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014.

The Arctic Adaptations exhibit, timed to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the creation of Nunavut, will also tour Canada after appearing at the prestigious design exhibit. Held every two years in Venice, the Biennale showcases new ideas in architecture. Arctic Adaptations is Canada's official entry.

The exhibit asks the chosen teams to design "new architecture that is adaptive, responsive and rooted in Nunavut's unique geography, climate and culture," according to the curators, Lateral Office of Toronto. This means dealing with issues such as the raw landscape, the harsh climate, the difficulties of getting building materials to the North as well as addressing local culture.

Aerial rendering of Arctic Adaptations in Canada Pavilion at 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. (Lateral Office)

Lateral Office has been involved in research and design work on the role of architecture in the North over the last five years. It was chosen to curate the Biennale project by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

Nunavut is changing due to a young and rapidly growing population and is becoming more economically important to Canada because of resource extraction, the curators noted in a press release. At the same time, it is facing climate change and will undergo "dramatic transformations as powerful environmental, social and economic forces collide," they added.

Five organizations from the North have been chosen to guide the architects as they develop projects devoted to health, housing, education, recreation and the arts.

They are:

• Ilisaqsivik Society Community Family Centre, who will work with Fournier Gersovitz Moss Drolet Architects of Montreal and University of Montreal.
• Nunavut Housing Corp., who will work with Lateral Office of Toronto and University of Toronto.
• Qaggiavuut Society for Performing Arts, who will work with Stantec in Iqaluit and Dalhousie University of Halifax.
• Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre, who will work with Pin/Taylor Architects of Yellowknife and University of British Columbia.
• Sport Nunavut, who will work with Kobayashi + Zedda Architects of Whitehorse and University of Manitoba.

View of Rankin Inlet - the logistics of building in remote communities is difficult. Mason White

The five architecture firms, who all have design expertise in the North, will work with Canadian university students to create a series of proposals that will be presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The goal is to create videos, models, animations and soundscapes that show how architecture could contribute to the prosperity and well-being of people in the North.

The Venice Architecture Biennale is scheduled for June 7 to Nov. 13, 2014.

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Massey Hall federal grant earmarked for foundation, loading dock

The famous Toronto landmark Massey Hall is getting funding from the federal government, which its president and CEO says will update and preserve the iconic venue.

The 2013 federal budget, released Thursday, includes $8 million to help renovate and expand the concert hall located on the corner of Victoria and Shuter streets.

Massey Hall's president and CEO Charles Cutts says the theatre is in need of $30 million worth of renovations but added the federal funding will be added to private donations to help with the project.

"We've been working really, really hard to get the money and it's money that going to go to a not very glamorous part of the hall because it's going to the foundation," Cutts told host Matt Galloway on CBC Radio's Metro Morning Friday.

The first project will be for the loading dock, something the hall hasn't had in its 119-year history, according to Cutts.

Currently, equipment has to be hauled up the front aisle to the stage. Cutts says the dock will save wear and tear on the ramp.

He says getting the funding was all about timing.

A recent land development on Yonge Street enabled Massey Hall to acquire a piece of land that Hart Massey wanted upon creation of the venue but was unable to get.

Massey Hall is a tight space, with no elevators or proper loading dock. There's virtually no patron space aside from the basement and yet it remains a sought-after venue.

"There are a lot of challenges with today's Massey Hall and time has passed us by," Cutts said.

However, he says with private donations and federal funding, the space will start getting the care it needs.

"It does need that tender loving care and we will not mess with the interior of the hall. It will be updated but it will feel like Massey Hall when you walk in," he said.

Built in 1894, the concert hall can hold more than 2,700 people and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981.

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Holocaust denier's Nazi-themed artwork spurs debate

Once revered for his ironic Nazi-themed artwork, Charles Krafft has sparked controversy in the art world after being outed in the U.S. media as a Holocaust denier.

The Seattle-based ceramicist has created more than a few swastika-branded pieces, including a Hitler teapot, and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across North America and Europe.

But despite the celebration of Krafft's sculpted hand-painted pieces, his recent comments have called into question the true motivation for his work.

'We can't now go and look at those images without an understanding of what his current political views are.'—Alan Schechner, artist

Krafft maintains he was using the "hot" symbols well before he was a Holocaust denier.

CBC Radio's Day 6 host Brent Bambury spoke with Alan Schechner who has had to fight to justify his own Holocaust artwork over the years.

Schechner said Krafft will having trouble retaining the self-proclaimed ironic meanings of his work given the new revelations.

"We can't now go and look at those images without an understanding of what his current political views are," he said.

Schechner stopped short of calling for the complete censorship of Krafft's work, but told Bambury he wouldn't be comfortable showing his own artwork beside Krafft's.

"That would be incredibly difficult if I was sitting alongside someone who had reservations about whether the Holocaust happened, or whether it happened to the extent we understand it," he said.

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Hollywood actress sleeps in glass box for NYC art installation

Actress Tilda Swinton is performing the art of sleeping at New York City's Museum of Modern Art.

A museum spokeswoman says the Moonrise Kingdom star presented her one-person piece called The Maybe on Saturday.

In The Maybe, Swinton lies sleeping in a glass box for the day. The exhibit will move locations within the museum every time Swinton performs.

There is no published schedule for the piece, which will occur about a half dozen more times through the end of the year.

Swinton first performed the piece at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1995. In 1996, she performed it in the Museo Barracco in Rome.

She won an Oscar in 2008 for best supporting actress for her role in Michael Clayton.

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Planned sale of Henry Moore statue sparks controversy

The massive bronze sculpture is formally known as Draped Seated Woman, a Henry Moore creation that evoked Londoners huddled in air raid shelters during the Blitz.

To the East Enders who lived nearby, the artwork was known as "Old Flo," a stalwart symbol of people facing oppression with dignity and grace. But now, Old Flo may have to go.

The cash-strapped London borough of Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest communities in Britain, plans to sell the statue — estimated to be worth as much as £20 million (about $31 million Cdn).

Art lovers fear the sale of such a famous sculpture would set a worrisome precedent, triggering the sell-off of hundreds of lesser works housed in parks, public buildings and little local museums as communities throughout Britain struggle to balance their budgets amid the longest and deepest economic slowdown since the Great Depression.

"If the sale of Old Flo goes through, it can open the flood gates," said Sally Wrampling, head of policy at the Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for art and one of the groups campaigning to block the sale.

The proposal embodies a dilemma faced by many struggling households: Do you sell the family silver to get through tough times?

Sculpture moved 15 years ago

Tower Hamlets, where a recent study found that 42 percent of children live in poverty, is £100 million (nearly $156 million Cdn) in the red.

The sculpture hasn't even been in the borough for 15 years. It was moved to a sculpture park in the north of England when authorities tore down the housing project where it had been placed. The council says just the insurance alone for the massive bronze would be a burden to taxpayers.

'We make this decision with a heavy heart'

—Local politican Rania Khan

"We make this decision with a heavy heart," said Rania Khan, a local councilor who focuses on culture issues. "We have to make tough decisions."

Local authorities throughout the country are being hit by funding cuts as the central government seeks to balance the budget and reduce borrowing. Funding for local government will fall 33 per cent in real terms between April 2011 and March 2015, according to the Local Government Association. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the cuts tend to hit poor, urban areas like Tower Hamlets hardest, because their spending was higher to begin with.

Some 2,000 museums in Britain are local affairs. Bury Council sold a painting by L.S. Lowry in 2006, and Southampton City Council backed down from plans to sell an Auguste Rodin bronze in the face of public protest. The Museums Association has advised the Northampton council to hold off on the sale of an Egyptian funerary monument estimated to be worth £2 million ($3.1 million Cdn) until more consultation can be done.

The depth of the recession and the lack of hope that things will improve soon are fueling the debate.

The latest figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent agency created in 2010 to advise the government, show the economy is growing more slowly than previously forecast, reducing tax revenue and prolonging the government's austerity program.

One thing is certain: Tower Hamlets, a community of 254,000 people, desperately needs the money.

Moore 'would be in favour'

Khan says she believes Moore, the son of a coal miner and lifelong socialist who died in 1986, would be moved by the plight of her constituents. She knows women who will be hard hit by proposed limits on benefit payments — people for whom as little as five pounds can make a huge difference — and families living in housing with mold growing on the walls.

"If he thought the sale of the sculpture would benefit the lives of thousands in Tower Hamlets ... I think he would be in favour," Khan said.

Moore attended art school on a scholarship for ex-servicemen. He became fascinated with the human form, creating works with undulating curves that reflect rolling hills and other features of nature. His most beloved motif was the reclining female figure, like that of Old Flo.

The statue features the graceful draping that Moore traced to his observation of people huddled in the Underground during the Blitz. In a 1966 interview with the BBC, Moore talked about the fear and exhilaration of Londoners sheltering against the Nazi barrage. He had concern for those he was drawing: He never sat sketching but waited until the following day and drew from memory — rather than capturing people in their makeshift bedrooms.

Alan Wilkinson, one of the foremost Moore scholars, said the artist would have been sympathetic about the hard times in Tower Hamlets, but would want his sculptures seen the way they were intended to be seen — in public spaces.

"Public sculpture was incredibly important for him," Wilkinson said. "He was very fussy about where it was placed."

Moore sold Old Flo at discount to the London County Council, a forerunner of the city's current administration, in 1962 on condition the statue would be displayed publicly. It was placed at a public housing project. The East End was one of the areas hardest hit by Nazi bombs, and its residents were directly connected to the work.

Now war memories have faded. The median age of people in Tower Hamlets is 29, the lowest in London, and 43 percent of the population was born outside the U.K., according to the latest census figures. Old Flo's story hasn't been told to the current generation, said Patrick Brill, an artist who uses the pseudonym Bob and Roberta Smith.

"If we don't cherish these things, we lose a bit of our history," he said. "If you lose your history, you lose a bit of yourself, really."

Critics protest sale

Still, Old Flo has a fan club. Danny Boyle, director of films such as Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, signed an open letter asking the council to reverse its decision. A flash mob of people dressed as Old Flo appeared at the Tower Hamlets offices in November to protest the sale. Another London borough has laid claim to the statue.

'This bonfire of public art is not the answer'—MP Rushanara Ali

Critics believe money raised by the sale would quickly vanish — and Old Flo would disappear into the private collection of a foreign hedge fund owner or Russian oligarch, taking Moore's message into hiding

Rushanara Ali, a member of Parliament who represents part of Tower Hamlets, raised the issue during a December debate, suggesting the proposal was more the result of "profligacy and extraordinary waste," than tough economic times.

"This bonfire of public art is not the answer," Ali said. "One has to ask, where does this end? What precedents will be set for other areas that may wish to make such sales to deal with financial challenges?"

Noting Moore's interest in the work of Pablo Picasso, Brill said Old Flo was influenced by Guernica, the 1937 painting that shows the suffering inflicted by war. As such, she still has resonance for the people of Tower Hamlets, an area that has been home to generations of immigrants, including the Bangladeshis who today account for 32 per cent of the population.

"Old Flo ... is a very British 'keep calm carry on' image of the same thing as Guernica," he said.

"Old Flo is East London's monument to people seeking sanctuary. She is our Guernica."

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Nigerian author Chinua Achebe dies at 82

Chinua Achebe, the internationally celebrated Nigerian author, statesman and dissident who gave literary birth to modern Africa with Things Fall Apart, has died. He was 82.

Achebe died following a brief illness, said his agent, Andrew Wylie.

"He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him," Wylie said.

For decades, Achebe penned novels, stories and essays to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country.

His eminence worldwide was rivaled only by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and a handful of others. Achebe was a moral and literary model for countless Africans and a profound influence on such American writers as Morrison, Ha Jin and Junot Diaz.

Helped define revolutionary change

As a Nigerian, Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige of serving on government commissions and the fear of being declared an enemy of the state. He spent much of his adult life in the United States, but never stopped calling for democracy in Nigeria or resisting literary honors from a government he refused to accept.

His public life began in his mid-20s. He was a resident of London when he completed his handwritten manuscript for Things Fall Apart, a short novel about a Nigerian tribesman's downfall at the hands of British colonialists.

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian-born novelist and poet, background, speaks about his works and his life at his home on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York Jan. 22, 2008. (Craig Ruttle/Associated Press)

Turned down by several publishers, the book was finally accepted by Heinemann and released in 1958 with a first printing of 2,000. Its initial review in The New York Times ran less than 500 words, but the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction, the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture.

"It would be impossible to say how Things Fall Apart influenced African writing," the African scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah once observed. "It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians. Achebe didn't only play the game, he invented it."

Things Fall Apart has sold more than eight million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe also was a forceful critic of Western literature about Africa, especially Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, standard reading for millions, but in Achebe's opinion, a defining example of how even a great Western mind could reduce a foreign civilization to barbarism and menace.

"Now, I grew up among very eloquent elders. In the village, or even in the church, which my father made sure we attended, there were eloquent speakers. So if you reduce that eloquence which I encountered to eight words … it's going to be very different," Achebe told The Associated Press in 2008.

"You know that it's going to be a battle to turn it around, to say to people, `That's not the way my people respond in this situation, by unintelligible grunts, and so on; they would speak.' And it is that speech that I knew I wanted to be written down."

Conflicting cultures

His first novel was intended as a trilogy and the author continued its story in No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. He also wrote short stories, poems, children's stories and a political satire, The Anthills of Savannah, a 1987 release that was the last full-length fiction to come out in his lifetime. Wheelchair bound in his latter years, he would cite his physical problems and displacement from home as stifling to his imaginative powers.

Achebe never did win the Nobel Prize, which many believed he deserved, but in 2007 he did receive the Man Booker International Prize, a $120,000 honour for lifetime achievement. Achebe, paralyzed from the waist down since a 1990 auto accident, lived for years in a cottage built for him on the campus of Bard College, a leading liberal arts school north of New York City where he was a faculty member. He joined Brown University in 2009 as a professor of languages and literature.

Achebe, a native of Ogidi, Nigeria, regarded his life as a bartering between conflicting cultures. He spoke of the "two types of music" running through his mind — Ibo legends and the prose of Dickens. He was also exposed to different faiths. His father worked with a local missionary and was among the first in their village to convert to Christianity.

In Achebe's memoir There Was a Country, he wrote that his "whole artistic career was probably sparked by this tension between the Christian religion" of his parents and the "retreating, older religion" of his ancestors. He would observe the conflicts between his father and great uncle and ponder "the essence, the meaning, the worldview of both religions."

'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold'

After graduating from the University College of Ibadan, in 1953, Achebe was a radio producer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corp., then moved to London and worked at the British Broadcasting Corp. He was writing stories in college and called Things Fall Apart an act of "atonement" for what he says was the abandonment of traditional culture. The book's title was taken from poet William Butler Yeats' The Second Coming, which includes the widely quoted line, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."

His novel was nearly lost before ever seen by the public. When Achebe finished his manuscript, he sent it to a London typing service, which misplaced the package and left it lying in an office for months. The proposed book was received coolly by London publishers, who doubted the appeal of fiction from Africa. Finally, an educational adviser at Heinemann who had recently travelled to west Africa had a look and declared: "This is the best novel I have read since the war."

The opening sentence was as simple, declarative and revolutionary as a line out of Hemingway: "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond."

Africans, Achebe had announced, had their own history, their own celebrities and reputations. In mockery of all the Western books about Africa, Achebe ended with a colonial official observing Okonkwo's fate and imagining the book he will write: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Achebe's novel was the opening of a long argument on his country's behalf.

Besides his own writing, Achebe served for years as editor of Heinemann's "African Writer Series," which published works by Nadine Gordimer, Stephen Biko and others. He also edited numerous anthologies of African stories, poems and essays. In There Was a Country, he considered the role of the modern African writer.

"What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue," he wrote. "A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories — prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal."

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Fashion seen as art form in museums worldwide

Fashion is strutting its stuff, not only on runways in Milan and Toronto, but also in museum exhibits throughout the world.

A year after the death of the iconic designer, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was one of the best attended shows in the history of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Other museums rushed to create similar shows, showcasing the place where popular culture and art intersect by providing an interpretive spin on modern design. For cash-strapped museums, it's always important to get bodies through the doors and fashion appears to have that potential.

Designer Jean Paul Gaultier's creations are now on tour, after a blockbuster show in the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

Christian Louboutin's posh footwear is the focus this spring at the Design XChange in Toronto.

David Bowie's very popular show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London showcases the musician's costumes and design ideas.

Recognizing the trend, the Royal Ontario Museum is holding talks about fashion as an art form.

"If you saw the Gaultier exhibit ...they started to play with some very theatrical elements including these holographic images," says Jeanne Beker of FashionTelevision.

"So these multimedia shows are, I think, really welcome, really interesting, and I think we should be seeing a lot more of them."

Beker, who has written about the fashion world for more than 30 years, argues it's time museums looked to contemporary design and its impact on the popular imagination.

"Let's get people in there. Let's give young people, and us old people too, a reason to come and celebrate. I mean are museums essentially not about humanity and about our culture and about where we stand on this planet as human beings? I think it's the perfect fit," she says.

For people from the fashion world, a museum show is welcome recognition.

Melanie Talkington, a Vancouver business woman who collects and creates corsets, will see her garments exhibited in the Louvre, during a summer exhibit called The Mechanics of Underwear.

"To have a prestigious museum in Paris contact me and fly me over there basically roll out the red carpet to my first meeting with the curator," said a surprised Talkington, who is owner and designer of Lace Embrace Atelier. "He told me I was an expert."

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Massey Hall federal grant earmarked for foundation, loading dock

The famous Toronto landmark Massey Hall is getting funding from the federal government, which its president and CEO says will update and preserve the iconic venue.

The 2013 federal budget, released Thursday, includes $8 million to help renovate and expand the concert hall located on the corner of Victoria and Shuter streets.

Massey Hall's president and CEO Charles Cutts says the theatre is in need of $30 million worth of renovations but added the federal funding will be added to private donations to help with the project.

"We've been working really, really hard to get the money and it's money that going to go to a not very glamorous part of the hall because it's going to the foundation," Cutts told host Matt Galloway on CBC Radio's Metro Morning Friday.

The first project will be for the loading dock, something the hall hasn't had in its 119-year history, according to Cutts.

Currently, equipment has to be hauled up the front aisle to the stage. Cutts says the dock will save wear and tear on the ramp.

He says getting the funding was all about timing.

A recent land development on Yonge Street enabled Massey Hall to acquire a piece of land that Hart Massey wanted upon creation of the venue but was unable to get.

Massey Hall is a tight space, with no elevators or proper loading dock. There's virtually no patron space aside from the basement and yet it remains a sought-after venue.

"There are a lot of challenges with today's Massey Hall and time has passed us by," Cutts said.

However, he says with private donations and federal funding, the space will start getting the care it needs.

"It does need that tender loving care and we will not mess with the interior of the hall. It will be updated but it will feel like Massey Hall when you walk in," he said.

Built in 1894, the concert hall can hold more than 2,700 people and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981.

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Holocaust denier's Nazi-themed artwork spurs debate

Once revered for his ironic Nazi-themed artwork, Charles Krafft has sparked controversy in the art world after being outed in the U.S. media as a Holocaust denier.

The Seattle-based ceramicist has created more than a few swastika-branded pieces, including a Hitler teapot, and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across North America and Europe.

But despite the celebration of Krafft's sculpted hand-painted pieces, his recent comments have called into question the true motivation for his work.

'We can't now go and look at those images without an understanding of what his current political views are.'—Alan Schechner, artist

Krafft maintains he was using the "hot" symbols well before he was a Holocaust denier.

CBC Radio's Day 6 host Brent Bambury spoke with Alan Schechner who has had to fight to justify his own Holocaust artwork over the years.

Schechner said Krafft will having trouble retaining the self-proclaimed ironic meanings of his work given the new revelations.

"We can't now go and look at those images without an understanding of what his current political views are," he said.

Schechner stopped short of calling for the complete censorship of Krafft's work, but told Bambury he wouldn't be comfortable showing his own artwork beside Krafft's.

"That would be incredibly difficult if I was sitting alongside someone who had reservations about whether the Holocaust happened, or whether it happened to the extent we understand it," he said.

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The Croods a Cro-Magnon adventure full of fresh ideas

Now that Pixar's turned into a pale imitation of itself, churning out prequels (Monsters U) and sequels (Planes) it's up to DreamWorks to keep up the creation of original stories. (Let's just ignore for the moment How to Train Your Dragon 2 + 3...)

Anyhoo, The Croods is about a family of Cro-Magnon men and women who spend their days sheltered from the terrors of the world in their tiny cave. Only when the father Grug gives the signal do the family venture out for a organized attacks on the wildlife, followed by mad dash to their cramped quarters before the sun goes down. (Keep your eyes out early on for a chaotic scramble for a single egg that would make Chuck Jones proud.)

Belt the sloth, left, voiced by Chris Sanders, and the young heroes of The Croods, Guy, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, and Eep, voiced by Emma Stone. (DreamWorks/Associated Press)

"Never not be afraid" is the family motto, but teenage Eep is a fearless female hungry to see something more than her father's cautionary cave paintings. So when Eep follows a flicking flame to discover Guy, the Croods' world changes.

Not only has Guy tamed fire. He's an inventor who uses tricks, traps and a sloth called Belt to keep his pants up. Eep swoons over the shaggy-haired beanpole who has something called "ideas." So when Guy warns the Croods the end of the world is nigh, a pre-historic road trip is order.

The Croods comes to DreamWorks by way of Aardman Animations where John Cleese and a partner had the idea about a genius stuck with a family of cavemen. The basic dynamic still persists and in fact the heart of the film is Guy's reluctant relationship with Eep.

With the goal of not wanting another "princess pretty character for Eep, co-directors Chris Sanders Kirk De Micco created an stocky, broad-shouldered gal who needs no rescuing. Voiced by Emma Stone, Eep is more of an athletic Amazon type than a damsel in distress. If anyone needs assistance it's Guy, who find himself kidnapped and carried along like a pre-historic GPS as Grug navigates the changing world around them. Ryan Reynolds plays against type as the geeky Guy, making a good straight man to Eep's exuberance. But that's just the beginning of this all-star cast.

For a while it seemed as if Nicolas Cage was been teetering into Gary Busey territory both with his off-camera antics and poor choice of roles. His half-manic, macho blend crossed the line of parody many movies ago. But as Grug, the Croods' patriarch, his guttural roar is the perfect voice for the dimwitted Dad. Also keep your ears open for Catherine Keener as his wife and Clark Duke as Eep's thick-headed brother Thunk.)

The Croods is a movie about embracing innovation and, by throwing the evolutionary textbook out the window, The Croods' creators give us an absolutely Oz-worthy riot of colourful creatures. Scarlet birds swoop in a murderous murmuration and the fauna looks like a cuddly version of Avatar's overgrown jungle.

While The Croods is guilty of drawing out the climax while hammering home the Daddy/Daughter dilemma, both in the storytelling and character design this is a decidedly fresh take on an old story.

RATING: 4/5

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Nigerian author Chinua Achebe dies at 82

Chinua Achebe, the internationally celebrated Nigerian author, statesman and dissident who gave literary birth to modern Africa with Things Fall Apart, has died. He was 82.

Achebe died following a brief illness, said his agent, Andrew Wylie.

"He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him," Wylie said.

For decades, Achebe penned novels, stories and essays to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country.

His eminence worldwide was rivaled only by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and a handful of others. Achebe was a moral and literary model for countless Africans and a profound influence on such American writers as Morrison, Ha Jin and Junot Diaz.

Helped define revolutionary change

As a Nigerian, Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige of serving on government commissions and the fear of being declared an enemy of the state. He spent much of his adult life in the United States, but never stopped calling for democracy in Nigeria or resisting literary honors from a government he refused to accept.

His public life began in his mid-20s. He was a resident of London when he completed his handwritten manuscript for Things Fall Apart, a short novel about a Nigerian tribesman's downfall at the hands of British colonialists.

Chinua Achebe, Nigerian-born novelist and poet, background, speaks about his works and his life at his home on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York Jan. 22, 2008. (Craig Ruttle/Associated Press)

Turned down by several publishers, the book was finally accepted by Heinemann and released in 1958 with a first printing of 2,000. Its initial review in The New York Times ran less than 500 words, but the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction, the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture.

"It would be impossible to say how Things Fall Apart influenced African writing," the African scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah once observed. "It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians. Achebe didn't only play the game, he invented it."

Things Fall Apart has sold more than eight million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe also was a forceful critic of Western literature about Africa, especially Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, standard reading for millions, but in Achebe's opinion, a defining example of how even a great Western mind could reduce a foreign civilization to barbarism and menace.

"Now, I grew up among very eloquent elders. In the village, or even in the church, which my father made sure we attended, there were eloquent speakers. So if you reduce that eloquence which I encountered to eight words … it's going to be very different," Achebe told The Associated Press in 2008.

"You know that it's going to be a battle to turn it around, to say to people, `That's not the way my people respond in this situation, by unintelligible grunts, and so on; they would speak.' And it is that speech that I knew I wanted to be written down."

Conflicting cultures

His first novel was intended as a trilogy and the author continued its story in No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. He also wrote short stories, poems, children's stories and a political satire, The Anthills of Savannah, a 1987 release that was the last full-length fiction to come out in his lifetime. Wheelchair bound in his latter years, he would cite his physical problems and displacement from home as stifling to his imaginative powers.

Achebe never did win the Nobel Prize, which many believed he deserved, but in 2007 he did receive the Man Booker International Prize, a $120,000 honour for lifetime achievement. Achebe, paralyzed from the waist down since a 1990 auto accident, lived for years in a cottage built for him on the campus of Bard College, a leading liberal arts school north of New York City where he was a faculty member. He joined Brown University in 2009 as a professor of languages and literature.

Achebe, a native of Ogidi, Nigeria, regarded his life as a bartering between conflicting cultures. He spoke of the "two types of music" running through his mind — Ibo legends and the prose of Dickens. He was also exposed to different faiths. His father worked with a local missionary and was among the first in their village to convert to Christianity.

In Achebe's memoir There Was a Country, he wrote that his "whole artistic career was probably sparked by this tension between the Christian religion" of his parents and the "retreating, older religion" of his ancestors. He would observe the conflicts between his father and great uncle and ponder "the essence, the meaning, the worldview of both religions."

'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold'

After graduating from the University College of Ibadan, in 1953, Achebe was a radio producer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corp., then moved to London and worked at the British Broadcasting Corp. He was writing stories in college and called Things Fall Apart an act of "atonement" for what he says was the abandonment of traditional culture. The book's title was taken from poet William Butler Yeats' The Second Coming, which includes the widely quoted line, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."

His novel was nearly lost before ever seen by the public. When Achebe finished his manuscript, he sent it to a London typing service, which misplaced the package and left it lying in an office for months. The proposed book was received coolly by London publishers, who doubted the appeal of fiction from Africa. Finally, an educational adviser at Heinemann who had recently travelled to west Africa had a look and declared: "This is the best novel I have read since the war."

The opening sentence was as simple, declarative and revolutionary as a line out of Hemingway: "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond."

Africans, Achebe had announced, had their own history, their own celebrities and reputations. In mockery of all the Western books about Africa, Achebe ended with a colonial official observing Okonkwo's fate and imagining the book he will write: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Achebe's novel was the opening of a long argument on his country's behalf.

Besides his own writing, Achebe served for years as editor of Heinemann's "African Writer Series," which published works by Nadine Gordimer, Stephen Biko and others. He also edited numerous anthologies of African stories, poems and essays. In There Was a Country, he considered the role of the modern African writer.

"What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue," he wrote. "A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories — prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal."

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