Sven Charleer has tried yoga and meditation, but it was “Tetris Effect,” a new version of the shape-stacking videogame incorporating immersive virtual reality and calming new-age music, that finally helped him unwind.
“It really takes you away,” said the 38-year-old user-experience designer, who lives near Antwerp, Belgium. “You can focus on the moment itself, which is something I have issues doing, because my mind is always wandering.”
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MILAN—When James Bradburne became director of Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera in 2015, he made changes to increase the art gallery’s appeal, including reopening the principal entrance that hadn’t been used for more than a century.
“Opening this door was a revolution,” Mr. Bradburne said recently, pointing toward the entrance that is adorned with a monumental clock.
Italy…
John Golden, 92, a retired contractor living in Manhattan Beach, Calif., on his “Big Red,” as told to A.J. Baime.
I started working at Northrop Aircraft Corp. in California in 1951, and at the time, plastics were new. I ended up in research and development, working on ways to put plastic on airplanes. Engineers would laugh at us. They would say, “You can’t put plastic on an airplane! Plastic is for baby bottles and bowling balls.”
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It was supposed to be a celebration of the best the motion-picture industry had to offer in 2018. But this year’s Academy Awards felt more like an effort to just get through the night without bungling one more thing.
And that they did. The best you could say about Sunday’s Oscars was that after numerous missteps along the way, it was perfectly competent. They didn’t give best picture to the wrong movie by mistake. There were no pointless montages. Rob Lowe didn’t dance with Snow White. Hooray.
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A good friend called me recently to say hello. We chatted about his kids, a problem he was having at work, and his recent vacation. When he asked how I was doing, I mentioned a big work project. “The deadline is bearing down on me and I am stressed,” I said.
He didn’t respond, so I asked: “Do you think you could brainstorm a few things with me sometime?”
There…
Milwaukee
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) is the artist everyone loves to hate. His meticulously rendered—nary a brushstroke in sight—and idealized images of comely country lasses, doe-eyed street urchins and pulchritudinous nymphs defined French 19th-century academic art. Both Bouguereau’s subjects and his treatment of them, cloyingly sentimental or coyly erotic, ensured that his name became a byword for everything the Impressionists, with their loosely executed paintings of everyday life, reacted against. Nor…
OUTSIDE La Cabane d’à Côté, a restaurant less than an hour’s drive from Montreal, a handful of guests, early for their reservation, kill time. They’re sipping beers they’ve brought, chilling what remains of their six-packs in the snow. This cabane à sucre (French for “sugar shack”) in St.-Benoît de Mirabel, Quebec, specializes in the uniquely regional feast that takes place during sugaring season, when the maple sap is flowing. It shows up in nearly every dish on the menu.
To reach the dining room, one must pass through…
WINTER SEEMS ENDLESS at this time of year, with the holidays long past or far in the future, depending on your point of view, but either way, it’s fairly bleak. It is, however, an opportune time for some diversionary drinking, and there is nothing more appealing right now than a delicious, substantial red.
Like many wine drinkers, I’m prone to the occasional rut, buying the same wines from well-known places like Burgundy, Rioja and the Rhône—good bottles, easily found but not necessarily surprising. So, for my own sake as…
LOS ANGELES—The 91st Academy Awards have been marked by unpredictability: Who will host? (Kevin Hart, and then, not Kevin Hart.) How many categories will be removed from the live telecast? (Four, and then, none.) Will producers stick to their pledge to keep the show under three hours? (Get real.)
Despite the uncertainty surrounding this year’s show, here are five things to watch for on Sunday.
This year’s best-picture race is among the most unpredictable in recent years, with three front-runners considered to have an equal shot at the top prize. Netflix’s “Roma,” the black-and-white drama about a Mexican domestic worker, is the leading favorite. But it will need to overcome Academy resistance to rewarding a movie that played mostly on a streaming service, rather than in theaters.
The race-relations drama “Green Book” is the most traditional of the front-runners and has picked up accolades from the Golden Globes and the Producers Guild of America. The wild card of the lot is Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” the critically acclaimed blockbuster that has been gaining momentum since its cast won the best-ensemble prize from the Screen Actors Guild.
Glenn Close is considered the favorite to win best actress for her role in “The Wife,” a drama about the long-suffering spouse of a Nobel laureate. She has been nominated for six Academy Awards but hasn’t won any, and she is considered the most celebrated actress who doesn’t have a statuette of her own—with Annette Bening and Amy Adams as contenders for that dubious distinction.
Despite a career that includes 1989’s “Do the Right Thing,” director Spike Lee hadn’t been nominated for an Academy Award before this year, though he won an honorary Oscar in 2015. His luck should change this year: Mr. Lee is the favorite to win in the best adapted screenplay category for “BlacKkKlansman,” and a contender for best director, though most prognosticators assume that award will go to Alfonso Cuarón for “Roma.”
The best-picture nominees “A Star Is Born” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” are giving the Academy the chance to stage some major musical numbers. Lady Gaga and her co-star Bradley Cooper will perform their duet “Shallow,” considered a favorite to win in the best original song category.
The Academy announced earlier that the surviving members of Queen will perform with singer Adam Lambert, though a rendition of the six-minute title song may not help shortening the show’s running time. Among the other musical highlights: Bette Midler has been tapped to sing “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns.”
Producers of this year’s telecast have pledged to do the near-impossible: Keep the show under three hours. The Oscars have stretched longer than four hours in the past, and the Academy tried to find ways to trim time leading up to the show.
They announced a plan to move four categories to commercial breaks, only to face such intense criticism from members that they scrapped the idea just days later. Same went for a plan to cut the number of performances of nominated songs—now all five will be sung. ABC, which broadcasts the awards, will be watching the clock: The network has said that viewers start dropping off when it passes 11 p.m. on the East Coast. Expect the orchestra conductor to be playing more winners off the stage than usual.
This year’s crop of nominees present opportunities for the Academy to mark several firsts. A “Roma” win for best picture would be the first foreign-language film to receive the honor and its lead actress nominee, Yalitza Aparicio, is the first indigenous best-actress nominee. Acting wins for Rami Malek, playing Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Mahershala Ali, playing pianist Don Shirley in “Green Book,” would mark the first time two actors receive Oscars in the same year for playing gay characters. According to awards pundits, it seems likely that particular milestone will be achieved, since Messrs. Malek and Ali are considered near-locks on Sunday.
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
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