Of all the English language playwrights, bards (poets), storytellers and content creators, he is The Father of us all. He invented over 1700 common words by connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, changing nouns into verbs and verbs into adjectives, and blending two words into one (portmanteaus).

He is arguably the greatest English language writer of all time and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. His works consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets and two long narrative poems. Today, over 400 years after his death, his work has been translated into every major living language, and his plays performed more often than those of any other playwright.

And you, yes you,  quote him everyday of your life without knowing it.

Here are few examples:

1.Swagger: Henry V, Act II, Scene IV/A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene I
“An’t please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night.” – Williams

2. Bedazzled: The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene V
“Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, that have been so bedazzled with the sun that everything I look on seemeth green.” – Katherina

3. Manager: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I
“Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?” – King Theseus

4. Eventful: As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
“Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” – Jaques

7. Arch-villain: Timon of Athens, Act V, Scene I
“You that way and you this, but two in company; each man apart, all single and alone, yet an arch-villain keeps him company.” – Timon

8. Assassination: Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success.” – Macbeth

9. Belongings: Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene I
“Thyself and thy belongings are not thine own so proper as to waste thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.” – Duke Vincentio

10. Cold-blooded: King John, Act III, Scene I
“Thou cold-blooded slave, hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side, been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend upon thy stars, thy fortune and thy strength, and dost thou now fall over to my fores?” – Constance

11. Fashionable: Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene III
“For time is like a fashionable host that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, and with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing.”

12. Half-blooded/hot-blooded: King Lear, Act V, Scene III/ Act III, Scene III
“Half-blooded fellow, yes.”

13. Vanish into thin air: Othello
“These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air”

14. Break the ice: The Taming of the Shrew,” Act 1, Scene 2

“… And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.”

15. Love is blind: The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 6
“…But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;…”

16. There’s a method to my madness: Hamlet, Act II, Scene II
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?”

17. A heart of gold: Henry V, Act 4, Scene 1

“The king’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant. …”

18. Stuff that dreams are made off: The Tempest,Act 4, Scene 1

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

19. To come full circle: King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3

“Thou hast spoken right, ’tis true;
The wheel has come full circle: I am here.”

20. Knock knock! Who’s there?: Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3

“Knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ the name of Beelzebub?”

Most people will agree. The Irishman’s limited theatrical run will force most people to watch Scorsese’s epic pseudo-biopic gangster drama on their laptops and TV screens.

An acute buzz and an overall positive critical response is predicting a bloody triumph. A probable gripping cinematic tour-de-force of the year, representing late-career high points for Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, directed by one of the godfathers of modern cinema.

Netflix’s hope is to use The Irishman in order to drive more subscribers to sign up and to entice its current subscribers to stick amid the scary arrival of most dominant force in the entertainment industry: The Walt Disney Company.

Disney+, the upcoming subscription video-on-demand streaming service, is set to launch, in Canada and the United States on November 12, 2019, after the company ends its existing distribution agreement with Netflix.

Disney’s incredibly vast film and television portfolio includes among others Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, National Geographic, select films from 20th Century Fox, Hollywood Pictures, and Touchstone Pictures. The service will also hold exclusive streaming rights to The Simpsons.

In January 2019, it was reported that Disney will spend up to $500 million on future original content based on Marvel and Star Wars properties.

All that to say Netflix is getting ready to lose market share and probably lots of it.

For the last two years their response was a very aggressive content creation strategy. In 2019 only, Netflix is expected to spend $15 billion on a wide range of content, its own as well as signing deals with other studios to house movies and TV shows. When traditional studios passed on “The Irishman” the streaming service was more than happy to jump in and to bankroll its $159 million budget.

To be noted that the fear of Disney+ arrival is possibly already priced in Netflix’s shares (market value of $127 billion), which are down 11% in the last 12 months.

Earlier this week, Martin Scorsese wrote a piece in the New York Times called: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain, where he explains the paradoxical situation he was in with his latest epic mob film. 

“In the past 20 years, as we all know, the movie business has changed on all fronts. But the most ominous change has happened stealthily and under cover of night: the gradual but steady elimination of risk. Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, the individual artist is the riskiest factor of all…The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.”

Scorsese fears that the financial dominance of “modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified” has become “your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen.” This tendency would marginalise the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Joanna Hogg, Claire Denis, Ari Aster, Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson. The great movie makers that Scorsese admires. 

When it comes to theatrical attendance demographics, age-wise, 25-39-year-olds are the largest movie-going demographic. They made up nearly a quarter (23 %) of 2018 movie audiences. Young families seem to be fond of the Disney films which, in the first nine months of 2019, accounted for nearly 40% of the US box office and hold five of the top six spots on the list of highest-grossing films in 2019. The “Avengers: Endgame,” “The Lion King,” “Toy Story 4,” “Captain Marvel” and “Aladdin” — have all sold over $1 billion in tickets globally.  

Are we entering an era where cinema as an art form is leaving the theatre and will be produced by streaming distributors who are willing to take more chances?

Is this a symbol of the times we are in, where most content is streamed in our homes versus the old times where movies were social events?

Personalisation, broadly known as customisation, is an integral part of the online world and common practice among marketing and UX specialists for almost a  decade. Its extension into the visual entertainment is no surprise.

 

The new posthumous Leonard Cohen album “Thanks for the Dance” will be out on November 22nd. A new single and a sung-spoken poem were just released and they are amazing. Gentle and mesmerising words of the most famous singer-songwriter to ever come out of Montreal are a sad reminder that our beloved artist is gone.

Albums features contributions from musicians including Beck, Jennifer Warnes, Damien Rice and Leslie Feist.

Facebook: facebook.com/leonardcohen
Official Website: leonardcohen.com

For many of us, Rotten Tomatoes is our go-to when deciding whether or not to see a particular movie. As a frequent and shameless user myself, I recently looked up the Joker to see if my own estimation of the film jived with what people were saying. And I discovered something strange.

As of today, Joker holds an 89% rating on RT, which pretty much reflects my own opinion of the film. But that’s just the audience score. Next to that is the critic consensus, which carries a dismal meta-rating of 68%—a 21% difference. 

By itself, such a wide discrepancy between audience and critics is not unusual; critics tend to score artistically unoriginal films lower, while viewers typically base their judgment on sheer entertainment value. Basically, critics are more cerebral, while viewers are more visceral. Take, for instance, the first installment of The Fast and The Furious. It received a flopping 53% critic score, but still earned itself a respectable 74% from audiences, also a 21% difference. 

So what gives here? For a film like Joker to earn the same critic-audience split as The Fast and The Furious, either Rotten Tomatoes is badly broken or something else is at play. Thankfully, it turns out to be the latter (rest easy, Rotten Tomatoes user). 

Social Responsibility Versus Professional Responsibility

Even before Joker premiered in October, fears of copycat violence were widespread. Well-intentioned critics, whose sense of social responsibility outweighed their sense of professional responsibility, had already made up their minds: they would not endorse this kind of movie.

But maybe the movie just isn’t that good? Consider that when Joker first premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, it received an eight-minute standing ovation and took home first prize—enough said. What we are left with, then, is a general sense of fear and uncertainty amongst critics: What am I saying if I endorse this film? What will happen? Will I be responsible if something does happen?

This reluctance is rooted in an understandable desire to keep one’s hands clean in the event of copycat violence—a self-protective measure more than anything else. In fact, I’m not even sure what else the motive could be. Do critics need to feel comfortable endorsing the main character’s behaviour before endorsing the film as a whole? Have these two things somehow become one? 

Or is a bad review actually a strategic move? A sort of preemptive strike to deter people from watching the film, one of whom might be the next sleeper-cell shooter, just waiting to have their hazy ideologies clarified by Joker’s descent into madness. 

But perhaps, more than anything else, bad reviews are simply a show of solidarity.

Shortly after Kelly’s press conference, Colorado district attorney George Brauchler publicly stated, “It never happened.” Regarding the persistence of the rumor, Brauchler added, “Of course the crazy-hair-colored guy who shot up the Batman premiere thought he was the Joker, of course! And yet it has no connection to reality.”

 Dr. William Reid, the psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Holmes’ mental health during the trial, said, “When I asked Holmes about him dying his hair red, he said, ‘Well, my friend dyed his blue, so I said I’d dye mine too and I just picked red.’” As if that weren’t enough to dispel the copycat theory, Dr. Reid went on to say, “[Holmes] said that the first he heard of the Joker idea was [from] somebody in another cell. He heard calling back and forth, ‘Hey, you’re the Joker,’ or something like that.”

Dr. Reid, who later published a book on the subject entitled, A Dark Night in Aurora, explains how Holmes simply chose this particular film screening because it was almost certain to be packed full of people: “He was just looking for a blockbuster, right? Had this been Jurassic World, he’d have been there. Had it been Avengers: Endgame, he’d have been there. He picked that movie simply because it was guaranteed to be full.” 

And yet the myth persists, and solidarity follows.

Strap Ideas to Your Chest & Load Your Pistols with Words

In a recent interview with Joaquin Phoenix, Popcorn host Peter Travers asked, “Is this movie too violent? Can it make other people violent?” To which Joaquin replied, “According to my research, talking about it is irresponsible […]. There was a vast increase in these particular types of crimes after 1963. And that year, there started an unprecedented amount of news coverage about these crimes. And so, people that commit these crimes—this personality type—they seek personal notoriety, they seek personal recognition. That is what they thrive on.”

Regarding the film’s media controversy, Phoenix added, “I don’t think that that’s helpful, and I understand people feel like they’re being the responsible ones, but I don’t think that’s true. And I think the evidence is to the contrary.”  

He concluded by saying, “I don’t think movies influence people that way. I don’t think they cause homicidal ideation […]. The conversation around them can be dangerous.”

Similarly, when Marilyn Manson appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly confronted the artist, challenging him about his possible influence leading up to the Columbine massacre. O’Reilly wondered whether it was possible that “disturbed kids” might interpret his lyrics to mean, “when I’m dead everybody’s going to know me.” To this, Manson responded:

Well, I think that’s a very valid point and I think that it’s a reflection of, not necessarily this programme but of television in general, that if you die and enough people are watching you become a martyr, you become a hero, you become well-known. So when you have these things like Columbine, and you have these kids who are angry and they have something to say and no one’s listening, the media sends a message that says if you do something loud enough and it gets our attention then you will be famous for it. Those kids ended up on the cover of Time magazine twice, the media gave them exactly what they wanted. That’s why I never did any interviews around that time when I was being blamed for it because I didn’t want to contribute to something that I found to be reprehensible.

This flips the discussion on its head: Could talking about the potential ‘danger’ the film (or Manson’s music) poses actually be the real danger? Could it be the lust for fame and recognition and martyrdom, and not a simple case of monkey-see-monkey-do, that inspires these acts of violence? Are all those well-meaning critics unwittingly contributing to the potential for copycats?  

Blame the Video Games (It’s Easier!)

For those old enough to remember the Columbine shooting, the media’s reaction to the Holmes incident was an eerie deja-vu. Simply swap Marilyn Manson’s music for Ledger’s Joker and presto! you’ve got yourself a motive. Right? 

Wrong.

In the aftermath of such horrible events, it’s only natural to look for reasons, to search for the why behind the what. It’s symptomatic of our need to restore order where there has been chaos. If we can elucidate the complex personalities of these mentally unstable killers; if we can find the root cause for their destructive ambitions; if we can pin it on something real and tangible and blame-able in the world—then maybe we can prevent it from happening again. 

We are quick to sacrifice nuance at the feet of closure. When it comes to trying to understand something so foreign and disturbing, we prefer black-and-white explanations. Scapegoats like angry music, violent video games and, now, gritty dramas provide us with all the fodder necessary, even though classic studies like Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment have been discredited.

What’s baffling is that most days we can hardly understand ourselves: Why did I just do/say that? Why am I acting like this? Why can’t I sleep? Why can’t I be happy? And yet, we so easily dismiss mass shooters as nothing more than the product of violent entertainment. How foolish can we be?

Of course, the alternative—to admit that it’s impossible to ever really know someone else’s mind—is an express train to existential angst. Unfortunately, that may be the only viable option we have. Unless we can learn to confront the complexity of human psychology head on, our understanding will never mature past hard-and-fast fallacies. 

For now, perhaps the best place to start is by simply treating a movie as a movie.

He is a child of 1968 revolutions, and maybe the most progressive fashion designer that ever lived. He turned catwalks into show business and dressed Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Lady Gaga and Beyonce among others.

His designs were futuristic, sharp and insect-like. His clothes with solid colours, wasp-like waists, and flame-like cutouts, impacted fashion conversations and runaways all over the world. He launched two major fragrances that to this day sell for almost $300 million per year. 

And then at the peak of his career, in 2003, he disappeared from the public eye, preparing for the most impressive alteration the fashion world has ever seen. A complete metamorphosis of his own body.

Thierry Mugler moved to Paris as a 20 years-old ballet dancer, in 1968, during the largest civil unrest in modern French history.

He saw thousands hurling rocks at police water cannons as student occupation protests spread to 11 million workers, bringing national economy to a virtual halt.

At that moment, to avoid mayhem, French President Charles de Gaulle fled the country, dissolved the National Assembly, and called for new parliamentary elections.

Shortly thereafter, violence evaporated, workers went back to their jobs, and when the elections were held on June 23rd 1968, the Gaullist party emerged stronger than before.

The exhilaration of the revolutionary spirit wasn’t coherent or sustained enough to support a lasting political and social change. However, May 1968 changed almost everything in both culture and arts. The protests spurred a series of long lasting intellectual and artistic movements, from music to street art and fashion.

Besides dancing and sci-fi novels Mugler loved clothes. He started working for various fashion designers and in 1973 launched his first collection, called Cafe de Paris.

Second-wave feminism was broadening social debates. Women were inventing themselves in new, unprecedented roles and appearance became a tool of empowerment. Mugler wanted women to wear, powerfull, independent and affirmative clothes.

In an interview with the New York Times, feminist historian and art critic Linda Nochlin spoke of women represented by Thierry Mugler as “women who appropriate their sexuality, in a way that is not exaggerated but grand. I find it extremely interesting politically because it completely undermines our concepts of femininity. It’s so extreme that these women are not sexual objects, but sexual subjects.”

During the 1980s, Mugler became an internationally recognized designer, and his collections garnered much commercial success. At the request of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, he completed his first haute couture collection in 1992 and releases his first perfume called ‘Angel’.

In 1990s he decided to turn catwalks into show business, sometimes spending over $3m on one launch and got to work with some of the world’s most beautiful people: Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni as well as world’s greatest stars: David Bowie, Janet Jackson and Beyonce.

He came back with a new name: Manfred.

He was barely recognisable, a completely transformed person, what NYT called  “…a 240-pound spectacle of muscle and nipple and tattoo…”

Since then, Mugler launched Alien, the second major fragrance (today Angel and Alien together produce about $280 million in sales annually). He designed costumes of Beyoncé, as well as neo-burlesque extravaganzas Mugler Follies and Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. He created and directed The Wyld, an intergalactic Vegas-style show in Germany where he currently lives.

Famous for having elevated privacy to an art form, Thierry Mugler has been refusing museums retrospective for years, including offers from The Met and Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in Paris. Therefore it came as a surprise when he accepted to work with Nathalie Bondil, the general director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, after she flew to Berlin, to meet him.

The idea was first suggested to Bondil by Thierry-Maxime Loriot who curated and organized the show under her direction.

“Thierry Mugler: Couturissime” is opening on March 2 and will include over 150 outfits designed between 1977 and 2014.

From march 2nd 2019 to Septembre 8th 2019

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Address: 1380 Sherbrooke St W,

Website: mbam.qc.ca

It’s 6 p.m. in Dubai when Danny Aridi and I first speak. He’s so soft spoken and polite, it doesn’t come as a surprise when he tells me how shy he was as a child: the catalyst behind the songwriting and storytelling he’s made into his career. He performed for the first time in high school, a step that he says helped shape his personality and root his passion even deeper. Finding a way to communicate his thoughts through music, was (and has remained) therapeutic.

Raised in Lebanon and the UAE, Aridi made his way to Montreal in his late teens to attend Concordia University, and spent seven years in Canada. His first professionally recorded song, “Home”, was produced by Aridi in Montreal, as was the music video that accompanies it.

He would post videos of song covers weekly, but initially pursued a career in hospitality after graduating and moving back to Dubai. Aridi made the decision to give music a genuine go by competing in (and winning) not one, but two, contests: Virgin’s “Best Artist” competition, placing first among over 150 artists across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Emerging Talent Competition in Abu Dhabi, where he went up against over 250 singers from around the region.

Through the competitions, Aridi won a contract with Universal Music, and a position opening up for musical acts booked to perform on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, including Katy Perry, Post Malone, Guns N’Roses, and the Backstreet Boys. I can’t help but ask him about the different crowds he encountered, opening up for such a spectrum of musicians. He says the experiences were all positive, but his setlists obviously needed to be adjusted accordingly.

It’s hard to tell how soulful of a singing voice Aridi has through our phone conversation, but you can certainly hear it in his music. At times, he reminds me of a raspy George Ezra, and showcases an impressive vocal range.

“Wanderlust”, Aridi’s most recent single, and its music video, were a brainchild that begun on a recent trip to India. The video is stunning – a perfect accompaniment for the bright, sunny pop earworm, and Aridi is the person to thank for it. On top of writing his music, he also comes up with the concepts and storylines for the videos, and self-produces all of his content. He knew that he wanted to showcase the country and people he encountered, so he reached out to a friend in the Bollywood scene to collaborate. They rented a camera, went to four different cities, and hopped out of the car to film whenever they wanted.

“Wanderlust” certainly isn’t Aridi’s only visually stunning work; the videos he produced to accompany his singles “Solo” and “Home” show a deep creativity that goes beyond songwriting. When I ask where the ideas come from for his videos, Aridi tells me that it all happens at once – every song he writes is already accompanied by a visual story in his mind, the song and the idea for the video going hand-in-hand. 

For now, Aridi’s focused on exposure. He’d love to tour in North America, but the crossover is tough and slow coming. In the meantime, Aridi has many more stories to tell, and he’ll keep creating content. He’s showing the world what he’s made of – not only genuine talent, but determination and grit, too.

Lyrics

I’m sittin’ in a bar tippling a jar in Jackson
And on the street the summer sun it shines
There’s many a bar room queen I’ve had in Jackson
But I just can’t seen to drink you off my mind

It’s those honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme those honky tonk blues

I played a divorcee in New York City
I had to put up some kind of a fight
The lady then all dressed me up in roses
She blew my nose and then she blew my mind
It’s those honky tonk women

Gimme, gimme, gimme those honky tonk blues
It’s those honky tonk women

Gimme, gimme, gimme those honky tonk blues
It’s those honky tonk women

Gimme, gimme, gimme those honky tonk blues

Songwriters: Keith Richards / Mick Jagger
Country Honk lyrics © Abkco Music, Inc