"charming tales have lived on"

LA LA LAND: Singin’ in the sun:
"In our Film Studies program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, one of our aims is to integrate critical analysis of movies with a study of film history. Sometimes that means researching how conditions in the film industry shape and are shaped by the creative choices made by filmmakers. We also study how filmmakers draw on artistic norms, old or recent, in making new films. This effort to put films into wider historical contexts is something that you don’t get in your usual movie review."

Kirk Douglas: ‘I never thought I’d live to 100. That’s shocked me’
"He uses a walker, and a stroke has affected his speech, but the old charm is still there as the actor recalls his old Hollywood friends Burt Lancaster and John Wayne – and how he was never really a tough guy."

Bagpuss and Co.
"Bagpuss is one of those series that holds a special place in many people’s memories. First transmitted on BBC1 today in 1974, only 13 episodes were made, but the simple and charming tales have lived on - partly thanks to their being regularly repeated on the BBC for many years, then finding new life on other channels, and being released on VHS and DVD. But there is an essential eccentric warmth about the series that accounts for the affection in which it is held."

Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?
"There are three popular explanations for the clear under-representation of women in management, namely: (1) they are not capable; (2) they are not interested; (3) they are both interested and capable but unable to break the glass-ceiling: an invisible career barrier, based on prejudiced stereotypes, that prevents women from accessing the ranks of power. Conservatives and chauvinists tend to endorse the first; liberals and feminists prefer the third; and those somewhere in the middle are usually drawn to the second. But what if they all missed the big picture?"

Obscure Gems Revisited:
"Larger than Life is, essentially, the same story as Rain Man. A cynical, materialistic character learns that his father has died but that to collect his inheritance he has to undertake a road trip accompanied by a beloved associate of his dead dad. The travelling companion is difficult to control, but during the trials he endures alongside him, the protagonist learns to be a better man. Except instead of Tom Cruise, you get Bill Murray; and instead of an autistic savant, you get an elephant. In what way is that not instantly superior?" [via]