Arts & Culture

New York’s City Parks Foundation gives another good reason for 20-somethings to make it over the bridge to Manhattan besides classes at NYU or vinyl sales at Mondo Kim’s. According to Pitchfork, the Foundation’s program for this year’s Central Park SummerStage, their 23rd, includes British soulster Jamie Lidell, DJ mastermind Diplo (the man behind M.I.A.), the math-rock heroics of Battles, the gritty funk of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and, of course, our own cardigan-hording Upper West Side chums, Vampire Weekend – and that’s just a sampling. All of it goes down at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield between June 12 and August 17, and all of it is completely free.

The Foundation will raise money for these open-air delights with, what else, but a handful of benefit shows. Yeasayer, Mark Knopfler, Sonny Rollings, the National, and Crosby, Stills & Nash will do the honors.

Surprisingly, today's Phil Spector news doesn't involve the legendary 69-year-old producer's murder trial, although it does involve a death: that of the engineer who helped create Mr. Spector's famed "Wall of Sound" recording technique.

The New York-born Larry Levine, 80, died on May 8 at his Encino, Calif. home after suffering from emphysema, The New York Times reports:

Mr. Levine, a house engineer at Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood, first collaborated with Mr. Spector in 1962 on the Crystals hit “He’s A Rebel,” the first of many Spector-produced records featuring lush instrumental backgrounds and heavy use of echo chamber. The wall of sound technique, which Mr. Spector and Mr. Levine refined through a process of trial and error, defined a string of hits, including “Be My Baby” and “Walking in the Rain” by the Ronettes, “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me” by the Crystals, and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers.  read more »

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Superbad's Jonah Hill has signed on to executive produce and possibly star in a new movie version of Johnny Depp's star-making, late-80s vehicle, 21 Jump Street. Variety reports:  read more »

Four years after Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore gets back on the soapbox (film-wise anyway) with a "searing and provocative follow-up," according to press notes. Paramount Vantage will be peddling the film this week in Cannes but it won't be in theaters until 2009. Full release after the jump.  read more »

The Weinstein Co. is taking Fraggle Rock to the big screen! Jim Henson's classic series will become a live-action musical, directed by Hoodwinked! director Cory Edwards. The original show premiered on HBO in 1983 and ran five seasons. The Weinsteins, determined to get more cozy and "family-friendly" recently, are probably banking on a blockbuster opening, since the first three seasons were recently released on DVD to big sales. According to Variety, "core characters Gogo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red [will be taken] outside of their home in Fraggle Rock, where they interact with humans, which they think are aliens." There will apparently be puppets and humans in the show but when we first heard this story, we couldn't help but wonder which actors would play the puppets. We think Carrot Top would make a good Red. And former Hobbit Sean Astin might make a good Wembley. That kind of movie might send kids screaming from the theater. (We're totally going to have the theme song stuck in our heads for the rest of the day, by the way. Sigh). More from Variety after the jump.  read more »

Robert Rauschenberg, a pioneering American artist who was an accomplished sculptor, painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, even a composer, died Monday night. He was 82. His death was confirmed by his gallery, PaceWildenstein in Manhattan. The New York Times reports:  read more »

Runa Islam, Mark Leckey, Goshka Macuga, and Cathy Wilkes are the artists in the running to win the Turner Prize, the same honor Damien Hirst so controversially won in 1995, according to Artforum. The Turner is awarded annually to a British artist under the age of 50 and has been handed out since 1984. But the prize lost a bit of its prestige to some critics when Mr. Hirst won. Conservative politician Norman Tebbit wrote in the Sun: "Have they gone stark raving mad? The works of the "artist" are lumps of dead animals. There are thousands of young artists who didn't get a look in, presumably because their work was too attractive to sane people. Modern art experts never learn."  read more »

It's a lucky number 13 nominations for In the Heights, the smash-hit musical about Washington Heights, including two nods for Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s 28-year-old creator and star, according to the New York Times. The 2007-2008 Tony Award nominations were announced today by Tony Award winners Sara Ramirez and David Hyde Pierce at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Other musicals competing for the top prize include Cry-Baby, Passing Strange and Xanadu. The 62nd Annual Tony Awards — hosted by Tony and Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg — will be presented on June 15 at Radio City Music Hall.  read more »

South Pacific performers heard some "Happy Talk" this morning. The revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical at the Lincoln Center won four awards for the 58th annual Outer Critics Circle Awards, announced today. The Outer Critics Circle Awards are decided upon by a group of writers "covering New York theatre for out-of town newspapers, national publications and other media beyond Broadway," according to Playbill. While South Pacific nabbed the Outstanding Revival of a Musical, Director of a Musical, Actor in a Musical and Featured Actor in a Musical awards, Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama August: Osage County picked up three awards: Outstanding New Broadway Play, Director of a Play and Actress in a Play. Raul Esparza and Eve Best got rewarded for their acting in The Homecoming, although we're bummed our main Deadwood Dad Ian McShane was snubbed for his terrifying performance.  read more »

Patti Smith – the Jersey-born queen of Bowery punk – hits the silver screen with Steven Sebring’s documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life. The film should hit theaters in late summer, with a DVD release to follow next year, Variety reports. Mr. Sebring’s debut picked up a grand jury nomination at Sundance earlier this year.

After Mr. Sebring met the singer during a Spin photo shoot, the photographer followed her around for 11 years. “That’s what I wanted the film to be – just me discovering Patti over the years,” Sebring said during a TV segment for the film’s Sundance premiere. “We mostly just hang out.”  read more »