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For years, Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net has been about two things only – awesome art and the artists that create it. With that in mind, we thought why not take the first week of the month to showcase these awesome artists even more? Welcome to “Awesome Artist We’ve Found Around The Net.” In this column, we are focusing on one artist and the awesome art that they create, whether they be amateur, up and coming, or well established. The goal is to uncover these artists so even more people become familiar with them. We ask these artists a few questions to see their origins, influences, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…

Dave...

Catbird Music Festival has shared the star-studded lineup for this year’s inaugural edition of the new two-day camping festival, taking place August 19-20 at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, NY, marking the first camping and music event on the historic field since the original 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair. Catbird will feature exceptional live music and curated local food and spirits offerings along with a variety of glamping experiences amid a majestic natural environment brimming with a unique energy and cultural history. The wide-ranging musical bill will feature memorable performances by 22 diverse artists across two stages, including headliners The Lumineers, Tyler Childers, The War on Drugs, and Trey Anastasio Band, alongside Band of Horses, Dispatch, Trampled By Turtles, Charley Crockett, Margo Price, Amos Lee, and many more. The complete Catbird lineup is below; a full daily schedule will be unveiled soon. In addition, for a $10 fee, festivalgoers...

Catbird is a brand new camping music festival coming to Bethel, New York this summer, marking the first event of its kind at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts since the original 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair. Its inaugural lineup has been released today, with The Lumineers, Tyler Childers, and The War on Drugs topping the list.

Catbird Music Festival is scheduled to go down August 19th and 20th. Its two stages will host a grand total of 22 artists throughout the weekend, a list that also includes Trey Anastasio Band, Band of Horses, Dispatch, Trampled by Turtles, Charley Crockett, Margo Price, and Amos Lee. Aside from the live music, attendees can also check out The Museum at Bethel Woods, a collection of authentic artifacts, interactive media, and more dedicated to Woodstock ’69’s history and legacy (for an additional $10 fee).

Ticket options include one- and two-day general admission, Ga+, VIP, and Platinum passes,...

It’s a gray April morning in a sleepy town outside Boston, and Chadwick Stokes is in the wood-walled studio above his garage, reworking a song he wrote decades ago.

“The General” tells the tale of a Civil War veteran who has a dream that makes him realize the futility of combat. Stokes wrote it for his band, Dispatch, and it originally appeared on the group’s 1997 album Bang Bang. Since then it has become one of the band’s most well-known tracks, a staple of Dispatch shows and big on streaming services.

Muscadine Bloodline know their fans have some expectations of the duo’s live shows. There are certain crowd-pleasing numbers they don’t dare omit.

“We have some diehards we’ve built over the last few years,” lead guitarist and vocalist Gary Stanton says. “If we don’t play ‘Porch Swing Angel’ at the end of the night, people are gonna riot.”

While that beloved 2016 single will undoubtedly make the set list, the duo of Stanton and singer-guitarist Charlie Muncaster still have some time to figure out the rest. Their Countryband Contraband Tour,...

When Henry Hoeft decided to join the foreign legion in Ukraine, he pitched his local newspaper on the story. The result for the 28-year-old was a PR coup: A glowing front-page profile in the Columbus Dispatch.

The piece described him, appealingly, as “as a former infantryman in the U.S. Army and half-Ukrainian on his father’s side.” And it enabled Hoeft to pose as an important actor on the global stage: “We feel like if we can hold Putin for long enough,” Hoeft told the reporter, “we can possibly stop a world war.

If anyone in Hollywood can pull together an ensemble, it’s director Wes Anderson. And his latest awards contender, “The French Dispatch,” has just revealed to Gold Derby the 12 cast members who will be eligible for the ensemble prize at the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards. The list (see below) features a star-studded smorgasbord ranging from Timothee Chalamet to Bill Murray.

Officially titled “The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun,” the Searchlight Pictures film is set at the outpost of an American newspaper in 20th century France. It revolves around the publication of the last newsletter, telling four stories that make up the feature articles.

SEEWill Wes Anderson’s star-studded ‘The French Dispatch’ break into crowded SAG ensemble race?

Anderson’s last live action feature, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” broke into the SAG Award ensemble race in 2014 with an even bigger cast of 17. The director is known for recasting actors,...

“Eternals” dropped 61 percent in its second weekend, which stands at the high end for the Marvel Cinematic Universe — especially after its low-end opening of $71 million. The good news? Considering the film’s negative critical and audience response (including a record-low B Cinemascore), that performance is better than expected.

That also stands as a fair description for the weekend’s grosses, which total around $72 million. “Clifford the Big Red Dog” is #2 with $16.4 million for the weekend, $22 million total for five days (it opened midweek for the Thursday school holiday), parallel to streaming on Paramount Plus. Also, no holdover in the top 10 dropped more than 39 percent.

Overall, this weekend performed at 65 percent of the same weekend in 2019; the rolling four-week average stands at 75 percent. However, with nothing opening to compete with “Frozen” and the $269 million it generated in November 2019, expect further comparisons this month to be brutal.

“Eternals” suggests another case of...

Is it a surprise that the press notes for Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” come in an immaculate pamphlet designed to look like a New Yorker-style magazine put together by a motley group of expatriates living in Paris?

Of course not.

Is it a shock that Anderson’s new movie, which stars Bill Murray and Owen Wilson and Saoirse Ronan and Adrien Brody and Edward Norton and Jason Schwartzman and darn near everyone else who’s ever been in a Wes Anderson movie, is very, very, very Wes Andersonny?

Heck, no.

You wouldn’t expect anything less from “The French Dispatch,” which opened in the Main Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival on Monday. It had originally been selected for the 2020 Cannes lineup – but when that year’s festival was canceled, Searchlight decided not to open it in the fall, as had originally been planned, but to wait...

Poor Willem Dafoe. This four-time Oscar-nominated actor was supposed to be part of an ensemble cast for two highly anticipated awards season contenders this fall. He plays a prisoner in Wes Anderson‘s valentine to journalism, “The French Dispatch.” And in Guillermo del Toro‘s noirish thriller “Nightmare Alley,” he plays the head barker of a traveling carnival who hires Bradley Cooper and introduces him to the world of showbiz and grifting.

But then the coronavirus pandemic got in the way and movie theaters had to shut and, in the case of “Nightmare Alley,” production on the remake of the 1947 original that starred Tyrone Power, was halted on March 13. There is a slight hope that filming can start up again but it seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Disney opted to pull “Dispatch,” which was supposed to premiere at the canceled Cannes Film Festival in May and open in July in multiplexes, from its release schedule.

Cannes Film Festival has finally admitted that its 2020 edition, which had been moved from May to late June, won’t happen in late June and is unlikely to go ahead “in its original form” due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

But that’s not the end of the matter. Organizers said today they are still hoping to salvage something from the rubble of the pandemic and stage some kind of event at some point this year.

The fest said today:

Following the French President’ statement, on Monday, April 13th, we acknowledged that the postponement of the 73rd International Cannes Film Festival, initially considered for the end of June to the beginning of July,...

The Cannes Film Festival, not for the first time, is going against the grain. While major events across the summer call it quits due to the coronavirus crisis, the fest is holding out hope that it can still take place over revised dates, which we understand to be June 23 – July 04.

For some, it’s hard to understand why Cannes is taking the road less traveled. Especially in light of the significance of coronavirus. Others take a more patient approach.

In a conciliatory and yet defiant Q&a quietly posted on its website two weeks ago, the festival said that its status will be guided by the French authorities. Those authorities have not told Cannes to cancel.

The festival also said it carried out a “rapid, broad, national and international consultation” with the industry as to whether it should go ahead. The feedback was supportive leading the event to conclude that it will not abandon its 73rd edition “until the evidence compels us”.

Sadly, evidence continues to grow. This week, France tightened its lockdown as Covid-19-related deaths soared beyond 10,000 and cases crossed 100,000. On Monday the country recorded its biggest daily death toll of 833. Health minister Olivier Veran said the country has not yet reached its peak. Municipal elections scheduled for June may move to October.

The Palais is currently housing the homeless. Cannes mayor David Lisnard said this week that the region is “heading towards a major social and economic disaster.” The city is currently disinfecting 60kms of sidewalk a day with diluted bleach and will begin taking the temperatures of shoppers before they enter stores. Once the lockdown finally lifts, authorities will issue every resident with a mask.

Meanwhile, global film and TV festivals are falling by the wayside at breakneck speed. This week alone we’ve had Munich, Annecy, Melbourne, and Edinburgh (TV). French animation festival Annecy was due to get underway a couple of weeks before Cannes’ new dates. Melbourne was slated for August. Cannes Lions has cancelled despite revised October dates, and summer sporting events continue to disappear: the Olympics, Wimbledon and the Open golf championship are no more for 2020.

Cannes has begun to invite movies and it continues to take submissions. But some movies that many expected to be highlights at Cannes are now moving later in the year. Wes Anderson’s French Dispatch, for example. Thierry Frémaux himself mentioned Top Gun this week but that’s another movie that has shifted to end of year.

June-July is Cannes’ only 2020 window, we understand. Slots later in the year wouldn’t make sense. Not for the main festival, at least. We have heard rumors that sidebar selections could potentially happen at a later date. A digital market will go ahead on the new June/July dates either way.

It should be noted that Cannes isn’t alone in holding out this summer. We’ve heard about other sizeable film festivals that are hoping to go ahead with reduced capacity theaters and deep cleans after screenings.

Cannes has said it would only need about a month to prepare the event so a final decision may not come until late May. The lack of certainty, amid so much turmoil and cancellation, engenders strong reactions in many.

“It’s slightly delusional to imagine Cannes can go ahead and every buyer I speak to feels the same,” said a well known European sales agent.

One Cannes regular from South America told us, “I won’t be risking my life to attend. What travel insurance is going to cover me for Covid-19 without a vaccine in the market?”

“Postponing Cannes to June/July is gobbledygook,” said a key German buyer. “This pandemic in my view will take us well into the back part of the year.”

“I’ve rarely seen such a level of denial,” commented an Italian festival veteran. “They won’t be able to pull it off. And yet they are resilient. They have always lived in their own bubble so I am not surprised.”

One leading American critic told us, “I don’t think anyone believes this is going to take place. I’ve been angry with the festival for stringing us along. The festival initially planned to only give us one month’s notice of whether it was happening. I think it’s in bad faith that it hasn’t communicated with us to a greater degree. Given what we know, who is going to sit in a cinema near someone who is coughing? Someone will cough at some point and there will be panic. You can’t disinfect everything. Unless there’s a vaccine, how does this event happen?”

The view from France is quite different. Many we spoke to can’t understand the clamoring for a decision. One leading French seller told us, “It’s pointless to speculate. We all need to follow national guidelines and that’s what we and the festival are doing. Beyond that we don’t know. Most of the international buyers we speak to say they want Cannes to go ahead and we hear that many companies are sending in their movies for selection. It is too early to cancel now. We would all like the gift of clarity and foresight but we can only follow what we know now.”

Another Paris-based film vet said, “The independent world still has hope and faith that this can happen. We all know the chances are very slim. Cannes is a very important event for the world, but particularly for France. Even a redux, more French, younger Cannes would be important for us. But nobody knows what will happen in three weeks let alone three months. I don’t know why people get annoyed. What else should the festival do? Of course it wants to try to go ahead. If it’s dangerous, it won’t be allowed to happen.”

One leading French producer who has had a number of films at the festival told us, “Nobody knows what is going to happen. The world in two weeks will be different to the world today. If the situation remains the same in a couple of months of course the festival can’t happen. But the world is changing every week. The festival and authorities are hoping that in a couple of months there may be medical answers that can change the game.”

The dichotomy in views is perhaps understandable. Those in France have less road to travel to get to Cannes and may incur less expense. The festival also has a unique standing in French culture. The government is trying to hold onto one of its most prized cultural events even if it must be a scaled back, less international version.

Despite a series of dramas in recent years, Cannes still has a unique standing on the global stage. The festival is not alone in thinking it is a special case. Much of the industry still feels the same. It remains the biggest film jamboree in the calendar, as it proved last year when it hosted movies including Parasite, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Pain And Glory, Les Miserables and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire.

Cannes, to an extent, is sustained by polemic and it thrives on the passions of its constituents. Disapproved of or adored, it’s never ignored.

Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” is four months away from opening in theaters, but moviegoers can start preparing now by viewing the five French movies the director had his cast and crew watch before the start of production. Robert Yeoman, Anderson’s longtime cinematographer who has shot all of his live-action directorial efforts, shared in a statement that Anderson’s prep work for “The French Dispatch” included putting together “an extensive library of DVDs, books, and magazine articles” for the cast and crew to check out in order to help them “assimilate” into the film’s period setting. “The French Dispatch” cast includes Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Bill Murray.

Yeoman said Anderson’s film list featured Jean-Luc Godard’s 1962 drama “My Life to Live,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 suspense movie “Diabolique,” Clouzot’s 1947 procedural “Quay of the Goldsmiths,” Max Ophüls’ anthology film “Le Plaisir,...