Hundreds More Movie Theatres Close As Attendance Plummets

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: It seems like it’s inadvisable to sit in a movie theatre during a pandemic. Thousands of theatres still tried showing movies this weekend — but the number of open theatres is dropping, perhaps because the number of people actually buying tickets appears to be plummeting. For example, there were 2,154 movie theatres open in America this…

92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain

Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and ’60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything… Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he’s effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay…

Anthony Fauci on the Coronavirus and the Prospects for a Vaccine

In the video here, you can watch excerpts from New Yorker journalist Michael Specter and Fauci’s conversation, which encompassed the hard lessons of the AIDS epidemic, Americans’ fraught relationship with scientific and medical authority, and possible time lines for the development and distribution of a coronavirus vaccine. The key questions, Fauci told Specter, are not just when a vaccine will be…

How Leo the Lion lost his tail

And how we gained a new constellation. Read about the Lion and the Queen’s Hair, one of skylore’s most famous legends, here. Source: https://earthsky.org/constellations/skylore-leo-lion-lost-tail-hair-queen-coma-berenices…

A tangle of stars in Berenices’ Hair

Berenice’s Hair – aka Coma Berenices – requires a dark sky to be seen. But it’s worth the effort, a wonderful star cluster! Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/tangle-of-stars-in-berenices-hair…

Netflix, Which Spent $100M in Oscars Campaign Alone, Won Just 2 Awards. ‘Parasite’, a South Korean Movie That Cost $11M To Make, Won 4

An anonymous reader shares a report: Around Thanksgiving, it looked like this could have been Netflix’s year to win it all at the Oscars. Critics were heaping praise on the epic scale of Martin Scorsese’s mob movie “The Irishman,” which felt destined to be the streaming giant’s best shot at the elusive best picture trophy. The Los Gatos-based tech company put…

Joel Hodgson Tours America in His Final Live Shows With ‘Mystery Science Theatre 3000’

With some help from his robot (puppet) friends, TV’s Joel Hodgson will heckle the movies “Circus of Horrors” and “No Retreat, No Surrender” live in San Francisco today — before heading out to 26 other American cities (including Austin, Denver, Boise, and Salt Lake City). It’s a final farewell tour for Joel, as local media outlets try to find an appropriate…

10 Days Early, Star Wars Fans Started Camping Outside Its Premiere

Anticipating next week’s release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 20 fans are already camping out in front of Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre, reports Cinema Blend: The tight-knit group of fans have brought along their sleeping bags, tents and Star Wars pajamas to the location for 20 years (since 1999’s The Phantom Menace) to get ready for the release of…

10 Days Early, Star Wars Fans Started Camping Outside ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Premiere

Anticipating next week’s release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 20 fans are already camping out in front of Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre, reports Cinema Blend: The tight-knit group of fans have brought along their sleeping bags, tents and Star Wars pajamas to the location for 20 years (since 1999’s The Phantom Menace) to get ready for the release of…

Netflix Cancels Rebooted ‘Mystery Science Theatre 3000’

Netflix’s reboot of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made this year’s “Best Of” lists from both The New York Times and Rotten Tomatoes. Yet apparently their bosses didn’t like them, and have shot them into space. Forbes reports: In a controversial move poisoning Thanksgiving for many indie comedy fans, Mystery Science Theater 3000 host Jonah Ray tweeted that Netflix has cancelled the…